Chương 33: The Price of a Specimen

Rine turned off the lights. The room became a map of breathing. Houndour stood beside the bed, her elemental current visible beneath charcoal fur. Gastly spread across the ceiling in a thin violet film. Beyond the locked door, two human auras waited with disciplined stillness. A third presence moved through the ventilation system. Small. Dense. Clawed. Rine opened Identify. Concrete and steel interfered. The returning fragments were enough.

Sandshrew — Level 18 Type: Ground Ability: Sand Veil Condition: sedated; command collar active They had brought the precise thing Houndour could least afford to face. That meant the medical file had not merely been queried. Someone inside the institute had sold it. Rine took the emergency grounding pad from his bag and fastened it beneath Houndour's harness.

"No Electric attacks." Her lips lifted.

"Ground type. It will do nothing." She disliked that more. Gastly condensed above the ventilation grate.

"No Cursed Smog. Lick or Mean Look." His eyes narrowed.

"You are both recovering. This is not a test of pride." The corridor speakers clicked.

"Rine Frostfang," a man said.

"Open the door and step away from the Houndour. We have no contract on the Ghost." Gastly's vapor darkened.

"You insulted him," Rine called.

"The Pokémon is stolen Rocket property. Transfer her and receive a clean identity." There it was. Not death. Not punishment. An offer to erase consequences if he surrendered someone weaker. Gideon understood which bargains could still wound him. Rine touched the scar beneath Houndour's harness.

"Counteroffer. Leave before the Rangers arrive."

"No Rangers are coming." The fire alarm activated. Sprinklers released white vapor instead of water. Houndour staggered. Rine held his breath and pulled his shirt over his nose. Identify caught the chemical profile in pieces: veterinary sedative aerosol, formulated for canine Pokémon, high dosage. The attackers did not care whether it harmed him. Gastly pushed downward, displacing the gas from Houndour's head with his own body. The sedative passed through him but disrupted his cohesion.

"Vent it," Rine said. Gastly expanded toward the room's extraction fan. The vent above the bed burst open. Sandshrew dropped through in a tight ball.

"Mean Look!" Gastly's eyes filled the ceiling. Sandshrew uncurled before landing. Its pupils contracted, body caught by the Ghost technique for half a heartbeat. The collar discharged. Sandshrew screamed and drove both claws into the floor. Ground-type energy moved through the building. Tiles split. The pulse struck Houndour through her paws. She collapsed. Every golden line along her ribs extinguished. Rine reached her before thought. Her heart beat once. Paused. Beat again out of rhythm.

The Dark core contracted around it while Fire and Electric energy tore in opposite directions. Cardiac desynchronization. Mutation Stability: 41% — critical decline. Fear narrowed the room. Rine's psychic energy surged toward Sandshrew. He could stop its heart. The knowledge arrived with terrible simplicity. Its mind was open beneath the drug and collar pain. A single concentrated thrust into the autonomic center would end the next Ground attack. Killing would be easy. Rine formed the strike.

Then he felt the collar. Not metaphorically. Aura revealed pain wrapped around the Sandshrew's throat, command and punishment fused until obedience had no meaning. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Another captive.

"Gastly, collar!" Rine shouted. Gastly released Mean Look and dove. His tongue passed through the metal casing. Ghost energy disrupted the circuitry. Sandshrew convulsed as the collar discharged again. Rine seized the device with psychic force. Weak control would not remove it cleanly. Dark energy could shield the Pokémon's mind but not its flesh. Aura could show him where the clasp joined. Three abilities. None sufficient alone. He braided them. Dark energy closed around Sandshrew's terror.

Aura traced the locking pin. Psychic force compressed the hinge until cheap metal folded. The collar snapped open. Sandshrew struck him. Its claw entered below his ribs and tore sideways. Pain arrived hot. Rine fell against the bed. Houndour tried to stand.

"Stay." The command came too sharply. Her eyes found him. Golden light flickered once, then died. Sandshrew backed into the corner, freed and terrified. Blood darkened its claws. It looked toward the broken vent.

"Go," Rine said. It fled upward. The door charge detonated. Metal bent inward. One attacker entered behind a Poliwhirl carrying a transparent riot shield. The Water-type's spiral shifted beneath its skin, and damp air gathered around its gloves. Poliwhirl — Level 21 Ability: Damp Moves: Water Gun; Hypnosis; Bubble Beam; Body Slam The second attacker remained in the corridor with a capture launcher.

"Poliwhirl, Hypnosis!" Its belly spiral rotated. Rine looked away.

"Gastly, screen." Gastly dropped between Houndour and the pattern, his red eyes squeezing shut. The sedative had thinned him badly. Rine threw the Black-Out grenade. He had purchased it for the orphanage raid and never used it. Dark particulate smoke filled the doorway. It blocked ordinary vision and scattered the visible component of Hypnosis without impeding aura. Rine moved through it. The attacker expected him to retreat. Team Rocket would have expected the same from prey.

Rine struck the man's shield with his shoulder, redirected rather than stopping. His injured side opened farther. He caught the attacker's wrist and drove it into the doorframe until the capture launcher fell. Poliwhirl turned toward the impact.

"Mean Look," Rine said. Gastly opened his eyes inside the smoke. The Water-type froze. Houndour forced herself upright.

"No," Rine said. She came anyway. Not to attack. She placed her body between Rine and the corridor. The second attacker fired. The capture net spread through the smoke. Houndour could not dodge. Rine caught it psychically. The cables stopped inches from her face. Blood ran down his side. The room tilted. He turned the net and drove it backward. It wrapped around the corridor attacker. Electrical restraints activated on contact. The man fell, shouting. The first attacker reached inside his coat.

Rine saw the movement through aura. He drew the knife. Its point entered beneath the man's jaw before the concealed object cleared the pocket. Rine needed only to push. The attacker felt it. His pulse struck the blade. No hesitation remained inside Rine. That was what stopped him. He held the position and pulled the man's hand free. A red capsule rested in his palm. Poison. Suicide or evidence destruction.

"Drop it," Rine said. The man smiled.

"You won't." Rine pressed hard enough to draw blood. The smile vanished. He still did not push farther.

"Gastly." The Ghost released Poliwhirl and used Lick across the attacker's hand. Paralysis tightened his fingers. The capsule fell. Rine kicked it beneath the bed. Poliwhirl blinked free of Mean Look. It looked at its Trainer, at Houndour, and at the unconscious man tangled in the capture net.

"Fight," the attacker rasped. Poliwhirl did not. Sirens reached the building. The man beneath Rine laughed weakly.

"You think uniforms make you clean?"

"No."

"Then what was all this for?" Rine looked at Houndour struggling to remain between him and danger. At Gastly reforming around the poisoned air. At Sandshrew's bloodied route through the ceiling.

"Them." Rangers breached the corridor from both ends. Rine surrendered the knife immediately. That frightened the officers almost as much as keeping it would have. The next twenty minutes became noise: commands, restraints, ventilation fans, medical teams, and a Ranger repeatedly telling Rine not to stand while he repeatedly ignored her. Doctor Sen arrived in sleep clothes beneath a clinic coat. She pushed two officers aside and dropped beside Houndour.

"Direct Ground exposure?"

"Magnitude through the floor."

"Duration?"

"Less than three seconds."

"Loss of consciousness?"

"Eight seconds. Cardiac pause approximately one-point-four." Sen glanced at him.

"Useful talent." They moved Houndour onto an insulated stretcher. She growled until Rine placed his hand beside her muzzle.

"I'm coming." The treatment room sealed around them. Ground-type disruption had destabilized all three cores, but the emergency pad reduced the secondary discharge. Sen administered a rhythm regulator, cooled Houndour's Fire channels, and used a Dark-compatible field to prevent further elemental bleed. Rine sat against the wall while a Chansey closed the wound in his side. Gastly hovered over the door, refusing treatment until Houndour's rhythm normalized. After forty-one minutes, gold returned beneath her ribs.

Faint. Steady. Mutation Stability: 49% — guarded Long-term injury: undetermined Rine exhaled. Doctor Sen did not offer false comfort.

"She may have lost progress. We will know in several days." Potential could fall through injury left untreated. They had treated it immediately. That did not guarantee safety. Mara contacted him before dawn. Her face appeared above a Ranger terminal, furious and exhausted.

"The attackers belonged to a private capture crew registered in Fuchsia," she said.

"Their contract came through three brokers. The last traceable account connects to a Celadon arcade holding company."

"The Game Corner."

"Possibly."

"Someone inside sold the file."

"A records clerk is missing." Rine looked through the glass at Houndour.

"Gideon?"

"The contract used his phrasing. We can't prove authorship." Rine remembered the offer of a clean identity. It had been Gideon, whether his hand touched the order or not. Orson Vale waited outside the secured treatment wing. Kecleon sat visibly at his feet this time.

"You knew they were in Celadon," Rine said. Vale did not insult him by denying it.

"I heard a Fuchsia crew accepted something involving a rare canine. I warned the Guild, not you. That was a mistake."

"Why are you here?"

"To correct it." He handed Rine a bronze token marked with the crossed-track emblem of the Kanto Hunter Guild.

"Temporary witness protection. Guild hostels, contract boards, and emergency channels. It doesn't make you a hunter."

"What does it cost?"

"Testimony about the crew. Later, perhaps, honest work." Rine turned the token over. Every gift in Team Rocket had contained a chain. Outside Team Rocket, gifts apparently came with paperwork. He could live with paperwork. Houndour woke after sunrise. Her eyes found Rine. He held out his hand but did not touch. She moved her muzzle beneath it. The contact was warm. Her current remained weak. It remained hers. Rangers found Sandshrew before noon.

He had crawled through the ventilation network into the institute laundry, where staff discovered him beneath a warm cart of towels. Without the collar discharge, his sedation wore off gradually. He suffered burns around the neck, a cracked claw, and no permanent Ground-core damage. Rine visited through a one-way observation window. Sandshrew sat inside a recovery burrow constructed from sterilized soil. He flinched whenever a machine clicked. An Audino moved nearby without approaching.

"He struck you," Doctor Sen said.

"I broke the collar while he was terrified."

"You saved him."

"Both can be true." Sen glanced at him.

"You use that phrase often."

"It keeps being necessary." Rine placed the broken collar outside the enclosure where Sandshrew could smell it. Then he stepped into view. The Ground-type curled immediately. Rine remained at the far wall.

"You don't owe me trust," he said. Sandshrew's armor stayed closed. No reconciliation occurred. The institute transferred him to a Ground-type rehabilitation preserve north of Vermilion. He would not be returned to the registered trafficker even if a court later disputed ownership. Rine signed a statement documenting the collar removal and the injury Sandshrew had inflicted. He refused to omit either. Three weeks earlier, Team Rocket would have evaluated the encounter as victory or failure.

The truthful version contained rescue, harm, fear, and no clean ending. It was harder to live with than a victory. Rine suspected that made it more useful. Truth rarely cared whether its shape was satisfying. Neither did recovery. Rine added Sandshrew's destination to his weekly contact list. He did not expect visits to improve the Pokémon's recovery. The preserve could decide contact was harmful and deny him.

Keeping the record mattered because saving someone once did not grant permission to forget what happened afterward. Doctor Sen approved the request without promising access.

"You collect responsibilities," she said.

"They keep surviving."

"That is generally the goal." Rine wished it felt that simple.