Chương 31: The First Honest Battle

The road gave Rine three peaceful hours before offering him a fight. He distrusted the timing. By midmorning, Route Seven had narrowed between terraced fields and old retaining walls stained dark by rain. Celadon City rose ahead in layers of green glass, rooftop gardens, and pale apartment towers. The air carried damp soil and something floral from the city's western nurseries. Rine had expected Route Seven to feel longer. In the games, it had been a strip of grass between two loading screens.

In reality, it remained one of Kanto's shortest numbered routes, but short was not the same as empty. Delivery carts used the lower lane. Commuters waited beneath solar shelters. Rangers maintained a narrow field where wild Pokémon could cross without entering traffic. He wrote the observation in his notebook. Route Seven is not six steps wide. Gastly surfaced from his shadow long enough to add: SCHOLARSHIP"Mockery from someone who lost a fight to a Bellsprout." Gastly vanished.

Houndour's ears moved toward the grass. Rine stopped. The aura approaching from behind was familiar: young, open, and accompanied by a small life that burned with stubborn concentration.

"Mister!" Rine winced before turning. The Caterpie Trainer from the previous day jogged toward him, his pack bouncing against his shoulders. Caterpie clung around his neck like a green scarf. Mud still marked the boy's knees, but the strands of silk attached to his wrist showed a cleaner, more consistent spiral.

"You practiced," Rine said.

"All evening." The boy held up three leaves tied together by nearly identical loops.

"Tavi hit moving targets twelve times." The Caterpie chirped proudly. Identify supplied more detail. Caterpie — Male Level: 7 Current Potential: White — Common Innate Potential: Green — Uncommon Ability: Shield Dust Condition: healthy; mild muscular fatigue Moves: Tackle — Beginner; String Shot — Beginner; Bug Bite — Unranked The potential difference caught Rine's attention. Poor diet had depressed Tavi's current development, but no permanent cap had formed.

Better nutrition and rest could recover what had been lost. The boy drew himself up.

"My name is Pell. I challenge you to an official one-on-one Trainer battle." He had clearly rehearsed the sentence. Rine looked at Houndour. She looked at Caterpie. Yesterday, she had yawned. Today, her tail gave one slow movement.

"Do you want to?" Rine asked. Pell blinked.

"Me?"

"Her." Houndour stepped off the road and into the marked practice field. That was an answer. Rine's heart accelerated. He had fought Rockets, wild Pokémon, Gym acolytes, and people trying to kill him. He had issued commands while bleeding. He had planned engagements around hostages and escape routes. None of those experiences prepared him for the absurd nervousness of opening his Pokédex and registering a friendly battle. The device verified both licenses, scanned the field boundary, and offered standard rules.

One Pokémon each. Victory by surrender, incapacitation, or referee stoppage. Lethal attacks prohibited. Trainer interference prohibited. No referee stood nearby, so the League network assigned an automated field monitor. A blue light projected from a roadside post. Pell swallowed.

"Tavi and I are going to win."

"Good."

"You're supposed to say you'll win."

"I intend to." That seemed to satisfy him. Houndour took her position. Rine removed her travel lead but left the medical sensor fitted beneath the harness. Her mutation stability read sixty-two percent. The clinic threshold for strenuous Electric output was sixty-five. No Thunder Shock. No Thunder Fang. Ember at reduced force. Bite permitted only with immediate release. Team Rocket would have called half her available power a handicap. Rine called it care. The field monitor chimed.

"Tavi, String Shot across the ground!" Caterpie fired before Houndour moved. White strands struck the wet grass in a spreading lattice rather than aiming directly at her. The improved spiral held. Pell had turned yesterday's advice into terrain control. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Rine smiled despite himself.

"Circle right. Test it." Houndour moved along the edge. One paw touched silk and pulled free with slight resistance.

"String Shot high!" Tavi pivoted. The second stream passed in front of Houndour's face and attached to a fence post. A third strand followed low. Pell was building a narrowing corridor. He had a plan. It was simple, visible, and entirely his. Rine's first impulse was to dismantle it immediately. Ember could burn the web. Gastly could have attacked from beneath the ground. Dark energy could unsettle Caterpie before he fired. Only Houndour stood on the field. This was her battle too.

"Read the opening," Rine said. Her ears shifted. Pell pointed.

"Tackle!" Tavi launched through the single clear lane, using his own silk as a guide. He was slow by species standards, but committed. Houndour waited until the last instant, stepped aside, and touched his flank with one paw. She could have struck hard enough to end the battle. She did not. Caterpie tumbled, rolled, and recovered before crossing the boundary.

"Bug Bite!" Pell called. Tavi sprang again, tiny jaws bright with Bug-type energy.

"Back." Houndour yielded ground. The silk corridor tightened around her. Caterpie snapped close enough to catch a tuft of charcoal fur. Houndour growled. Gold lines brightened beneath her ribs.

"No current," Rine said. The light remained. For a moment, the training cell returned between them. Pain, hunger, and electricity building without release. Rine felt her frustration through aura—not words, but pressure shaped like a trapped breath. He could command obedience. Instead he gave her an option.

"Small Ember. Left anchor." Houndour inhaled and released a narrow tongue of flame. It touched the web where several strands met the fence. Silk shriveled. The corridor loosened without the fire passing near Caterpie. Her current diminished.

"Again," Rine said.

"Right anchor." The second Ember freed the opposite side.

"Tavi, String Shot at her legs!" Caterpie fired.

"Forward." Houndour ran into the attack. The silk struck her chest and forelegs. She continued through it, dragging the lighter Caterpie forward when the strand remained connected. Pell's eyes widened.

"Cut it!" Tavi stopped producing silk too late. Houndour reached him.

"Bite—hold." Her jaws closed around Caterpie's hardened head crest. Not enough to pierce. Enough to lift his front feet from the grass. Tavi froze. Houndour's teeth carried no flame and no electricity. She waited. Pell looked at his partner. Caterpie's body trembled, but he was conscious and trying to twist free.

"We surrender," Pell said. The field monitor chimed twice. Victory: Rine Frostfang and Houndour. Houndour released Tavi immediately. Pell ran onto the field. Rine's muscles tightened at the rule violation before remembering the battle had ended. The boy knelt, checked Caterpie's crest, and accepted an indignant chirp.

"Are you hurt?" Tavi bit his sleeve.

"That means no," Rine said.

"He does that when he's angry."

"That also means no." Rine crossed the field more slowly. He crouched beside Houndour and held out the medical reader.

"Scan?" She touched it with her nose. Pulse elevated. Mutation stable. No internal heat spike.

"You kept control." Her gaze remained on Caterpie. Pell approached carrying Tavi. His disappointment was visible, but it had not become shame.

"We almost trapped you."

"You did trap us."

"But we lost."

"Those are not opposites." Pell frowned as he considered that. Rine transferred the standard wager—twenty Poké Dollars—back to him. The boy looked offended.

"I'm supposed to pay."

"Buy Tavi protein mix."

"That's charity."

"It's tactical consultation. His current growth is below what it should be. Ask a Center nutritionist for a Bug-type recovery plan and give him two rest days." Pell's suspicion softened.

"You can tell that by looking?"

"Enough of it." He accepted the money. Caterpie leaned toward Houndour. She lowered her head. Tavi touched one antenna to the pale band above her muzzle, then withdrew. No friendship formed. No miraculous bond joined them. They had fought, stopped, and remained safe enough to be curious. Rine had not known how much he needed to see that. Pell headed east toward Saffron. Rine watched until the boy's aura disappeared into road traffic.

His Pokédex recorded Houndour's experience without the dramatic certainty of his old games. Level: 11 Physical development: advancing Ember mastery: Beginner, 34% Command response: voluntary The final entry mattered most. Rine added a note beneath it. First licensed battle. No one died. Gastly emerged and drew a medal above Houndour's head. The illusion read: DID NOT EAT BUG Houndour snapped at him. Her jaws passed through vapor. Rine laughed. The sound followed them toward Celadon.

The city gate stood beneath an arch covered in living ivy. A Ranger checked Rine's provisional conditions, confirmed his clinic appointment, and scanned both Pokémon for communicable illness. Beyond the gate, Celadon opened around them in green terraces. It was brighter than Saffron without being cleaner. Department stores and hotels faced old alleys filled with food stalls. Electric trams moved beneath hanging gardens.

Trainers walked beside Pokémon too large for narrow sidewalks, creating traffic patterns no game had ever needed to represent. Houndour stopped at the first intersection. Hundreds of scents reached her at once. Rine rested his hand near her shoulder without touching.

"Too much?" She stepped closer. Together, they entered the crowd. Above the rooftops, a sign marked the Celadon Pokémon Medical Institute. Three blocks below it, behind smoked glass and a row of cheerful arcade advertisements, an old red letter had been painted over so many times that only its shape remained. Rine recognized the entrance to the Game Corner. Team Rocket had once hidden beneath it in the games. In this world, history had apparently learned nothing. The recognition changed how he walked.

He began marking cameras, rooflines, and people who lingered without shopping. A woman watering window boxes became a possible observer. Two delivery Machoke beside the arcade became muscle positioned near an entrance. Every alley acquired tactical meaning. Houndour stopped. Rine had walked half a block beyond the turn for the medical institute. She stood beneath its green sign, staring at him.

"I saw it." Her expression suggested otherwise. Gastly floated beside her and created an arrow large enough to block pedestrian traffic. Rine returned. Celadon did not become Team Rocket territory merely because Team Rocket occupied part of it. Families ate at street tables. A florist argued with a Weepinbell that kept swallowing ribbon. Trainers gathered around a public battle board, searching for friendly matches. The city contained danger, but danger did not possess every ordinary thing around it.

Rine wrote that in the notebook too. A known threat is not the entire map. At the institute entrance, a League kiosk requested his Trainer number and purpose of visit. He entered Houndour's species, mutation classification, and referral code. The screen asked for her name. Rine left the field blank. He felt guilty without understanding why. The system accepted Houndour — unnamed and printed a patient band. She sniffed it before allowing him to attach it to her harness.

"We should solve that eventually," he said. She ignored him and entered the institute. Gastly changed the blank field on the discarded receipt to: DOG Rine folded it and put it in his pocket. The paper marked the first battle they had entered freely, the first city they had reached by choosing the road, and an absence he had finally begun to notice. Before the receptionist called them, Rine opened the record of the morning's battle one last time. Pell had filed a sportsmanship rating of five stars.

His written comment read: Houndour is scary but nice. Trainer talks strange. Good advice. Rine saved it. Official records had previously described him as an asset, criminal, witness, and danger. This one had been written by a boy who lost twenty Poké Dollars and still considered the meeting worthwhile.

"Trainer talks strange," Rine murmured. Gastly nodded with excessive enthusiasm. Houndour rested against his boot. The appointment door opened. Rine stood and followed Houndour through it, carrying that strange little victory with him. It felt honest.