Chương 13: Defective Property

Returning to Team Rocket with an uncontained Ghost-type was difficult. Doing so while an Iron Talon retrieval team searched Old Saffron bordered on suicidal. Rine waited inside the tailor's shop until Houndour could stand. Gastly explored the building through walls, returning periodically to peer from mirrors or make headless mannequins move. His humor possessed the refinement of a child discovering that adults frightened easily. He was newly formed, Rine realized—not hatched, perhaps, but young.

Ghost-type age did not follow ordinary biology. Gastly could arise from concentrated poison, spiritual residue, or places where violent emotion accumulated. Identify estimated physical maturity but refused to provide chronological age. The Rocket cylinder had damaged him. Whenever Gastly expanded, pieces of his vapor failed to return, leaving thin violet trails across the room. Cursed Smog compensated by drawing fear and ambient poison into his body.

That ability made him unusually resilient in corrupted environments and dangerous everywhere else. Rine used the scavenger's radio to monitor Iron Talon channels. Mara Vey ordered checkpoints on three eastern roads but described the suspect only as a teenage male traveling with an unusual Houndour. She did not mention the Rocket Watch or Rine's name over an open frequency. That restraint could be caution. It could also mean she wanted to find him privately.

Team Rocket transmitted a different message: > Retrieval Unit Seven has secured the clinic. > Trainee Frostfang: return with asset immediately. > Failure to report within sixty minutes triggers desertion protocol. Mira's face appeared beneath the warning. Rine left after twenty-seven minutes. He recalled Houndour despite her reluctance. Gastly refused both balls and hid inside his shadow. Identify suggested the Ghost could remain there without poisoning him if he kept his vapor compressed.

Suggested was doing heroic work in that sentence.

"If I start choking, you come out." Red eyes blinked beneath his feet. Rine stole a coat from the tailor's racks to hide the torn jacket and Rocket Watch. He moved through service alleys, crossed a drainage channel, and entered the base through an unused heating conduit marked on the scavenger's stolen map. The route bypassed the main checkpoint. It did not bypass Gideon. The executive waited in Training Cell Nineteen. Houndour's grounding mat had been removed. Restraint chains hung from the wall loop.

A Hypno stood beside the door.

"Release the asset," Gideon said. Rine remained in the doorway.

"She needs treatment."

"Gastly." The shadow beneath Rine did not move.

"He isn't stable enough for handling." Gideon's eyes settled upon the shadow.

"He?" Rine had revealed more than intended.

"The Research Division owns that Pokémon."

"He entered my custody voluntarily."

"Team Rocket does not recognize voluntary transfer from its property." Psychic pressure entered the room. Rine's Dark barrier rose. It still hurt. Blood warmed his nose, but the Hypno's probe encountered a sealed surface rather than his mission memories. Gideon looked pleased.

"Progress under pressure," he said.

"Release Gastly." Rine considered fighting. Houndour's ball rested at his belt. Gastly waited beneath him. Hypno was powerful enough to crush both without moving from the door. Mira remained upstairs.

"Come out," Rine said. Gastly emerged. Handlers entered wearing sealed suits. One carried the repaired containment cylinder. Gastly's eyes narrowed. Violet gas spread.

"Wait," Rine said. The Ghost paused. Gideon noticed that too.

"Interesting."

"Register him to me."

"You are negotiating with resources you do not possess."

"Your courier lost the asset. Your retrieval unit arrived after Iron Talon. I recovered him, disrupted the guild operation, and returned without exposing the base entrance."

"You were identified."

"As a Rocket trainee. They already know trainees exist." Gideon's smile vanished.

"They know your face."

"Then assigning Gastly elsewhere doesn't change the risk." For several seconds, the only sound was Gastly's quiet bubbling. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! Gideon raised one hand. The handlers stopped.

"One thousand credits and full Grunt candidacy," he said.

"Those were the mission terms."

"Yes."

"Registration of a Purple-potential Ghost exceeds both."

"His current potential is Blue." Gideon's attention sharpened.

"How do you know?" Rine said nothing. The executive understood.

"Identify is developing." Another secret lost.

"You may register the asset provisionally," Gideon decided.

"Research retains reclamation authority. You will surrender all mutation data and submit him for weekly evaluation." Rine did not like the terms. He accepted before they worsened. Registration required Gastly to enter a ball. Rine offered the empty standard model rather than the Rocket cylinder. Gastly examined it, looked toward the handlers, and permitted capture. The ball locked after one movement.

> REGISTRATION COMPLETE > Trainer: Rine Frostfang > Pokémon: Gastly > Legal Status: Provisional working partner > Research lien: Active Rine released him immediately. Gastly returned to his shadow. Gideon dismissed the handlers.

"Now Houndour." Rine's hand stopped above her ball.

"She was poisoned."

"The infirmary is waiting."

"The chains?"

"Precaution." Rine released Houndour. She appeared weak, sniffed the room, and panicked at the missing mat. Golden current erupted. The chains amplified the smell of old restraints. Hypno raised its pendulum.

"Don't," Rine said. Houndour backed into his legs.

"No one is touching her until the mat returns." Gideon studied him.

"You risk yourself for assets remarkably often."

"Healthy Pokémon perform better."

"A useful justification. Perhaps one day you will believe it is the only reason." The grounding mat returned. Houndour crossed to it and discharged enough energy to make the copper glow. Medics treated her poison exposure in the cell under Rine's supervision. The process cost three hundred credits, deducted before his mission reward cleared. Team Rocket gave with one hand and invoiced with the other. By dawn, Rine's status changed.

> RANK: GRUNT CANDIDATE > Operational balance: 700 credits > Registered partners: Houndour, Gastly > Assessment period complete Of the ten remaining recruits, six received candidacy. Cassian ranked first. Iona placed fourth. Rine placed third after the Old Saffron recovery. The lower four disappeared before breakfast. No announcement explained where they went. Their Pokémon returned to inventory with new condition reports and lower current potential.

Rine stood in the communal yard with Houndour beside him and Gastly hiding in his shadow. He should have felt relief. He had survived the month. He possessed two partners, a legal identity, and limited access to the city. Instead, he counted empty places. Cassian approached wearing a new black uniform.

"Two Pokémon," he said.

"Gideon likes you."

"He likes results."

"Same thing here." Ekans followed at his heel. The collar remained, but the snake had grown. Identify showed Level 12 and Current Potential White. Untreated internal bruising reduced its physical resilience. Rine looked at Cassian. Killing him would protect Ekans. The thought arrived first, before reporting the injuries or attempting leverage. Rine recognized the change. He felt concern about it. Not enough. Gastly's eyes opened beneath his feet, reflecting a darkness that belonged to more than the yard.

The promotion granted Rine a new dormitory, though the word exaggerated its comforts. Grunt quarters contained two rooms shared by four operatives, a communal wash station, and lockers that did not entirely seal. Rine requested permission to remain in Training Cell Nineteen while Houndour recovered. Gideon approved. The cell offered fewer comforts but more control. Rine knew every camera angle, every sound in the pipes, and every place Gastly could hide data.

Familiar confinement felt safer than improved confinement. Gastly's first medical evaluation occurred under Research supervision. Three scientists entered wearing sealed suits. The lead researcher, Dr. Soren Pell, regarded the Ghost as a damaged machine.

"Expand the asset." Gastly remained in Rine's shadow.

"He responds better to requests." Pell looked at him.

"Expand it." Rine crouched.

"Come out. Small." Gastly emerged in a compressed sphere. The researcher measured vapor density, poison composition, and spectral cohesion. When she activated a tuning fork, Gastly recoiled so violently that Houndour stood over him.

"Stop."

"Cohesion stress test."

"He is breaking apart."

"That is the measurement." Rine caught Pell's wrist before she struck the fork again. Two guards raised weapons. Houndour's golden markings brightened. Gastly filled the floor with red eyes. Pell looked down at Rine's hand.

"Remove it." Rine did.

"The research lien permits weekly evaluation," he said.

"It does not permit destructive testing without treatment authorization." He had read the registration agreement six times. Pell checked her tablet. Annoyance tightened her face. Rine was correct. Team Rocket honored rules only when breaking them created administrative inconvenience, but that was enough today. The evaluation concluded with a nutritional prescription. Gastly required controlled access to nonliving toxins, emotional energy, and trace minerals carried in vapor.

He did not eat ordinary food, though he enjoyed stealing warmth and scent from it. Rine purchased laboratory-grade gas substrate and mixed it with vapor from spoiled berries. Gastly disliked the first blend and shaped it into a rude image of Dr. Pell. The second mixture worked. His current potential remained Blue. Identify estimated Purple restoration within three months if fragmentation stopped. That evening, Rine introduced formal boundaries.

"No entering a person's body without a combat command or immediate danger." Gastly rolled his eyes.

"No using Tomas, Mira, my family, or Houndour's captivity for jokes." The Ghost's expression sobered.

"No poison in sleeping areas. No possessing people for entertainment. No licking me while I'm eating." Gastly disputed the final rule through an elaborate illusion of Rine being licked by twenty Gastly. Houndour watched, tail moving against the floor. Rine waited until the images vanished.

"Finished?" Gastly nodded.

"Your rules." The question confused him.

"What don't you want us to do?" Gastly became still. He projected the containment cylinder. Then restraints. Then Dr. Pell's tuning fork.

"No sealed containers unless necessary. No destructive tests. No tuning forks." The Ghost added an image of Houndour biting his tongue. Rine looked at her.

"No biting him unless he earns it." Houndour huffed. The agreement was crude, but it made the cell different from Team Rocket. Rules applied in more than one direction. That night, Gastly slept inside the wall and Houndour beside the bed. Rine lay awake between heat and cold, listening to two kinds of breathing—one physical, one like gas moving through old pipes. He had acquired a second partner. The word team still felt too hopeful. He allowed himself to think it once before sleeping.

Morning made the arrangement less poetic. Gastly emerged from the wall directly above Rine's face and licked him awake. Rine struck his head on the bedframe. Houndour barked, startled, then chased the laughing Ghost around the cell while he passed through every solid object available.

"We discussed this." Gastly projected the agreed rule and added a tiny sun above it. No licking while eating, not sleeping. Rine stared. The Ghost had found a loophole.

"New rule. No licking my face unless I'm unconscious because of an injury." Gastly considered, then nodded with suspicious enthusiasm. Their first shared breakfast followed. Houndour ate her prescribed diet. Gastly absorbed scent and warmth from a bowl of spoiled berries, leaving them cold and odorless. Rine consumed Rocket porridge that tasted worse than either meal. The domestic absurdity mattered. Team Rocket had assembled them as assets, yet ordinary habits formed between inspections and missions.

Houndour guarded the food. Gastly stole warmth. Rine complained and measured medicine. A team, he realized, was not created by registration. It emerged from repetition. When Houndour finished, she pushed her bowl toward Rine. Gastly made an illusionary second portion appear inside it. She snapped at him. He vanished, laughing. Rine sighed and fetched actual food. For five minutes, the cell felt like a home no architect intended. The camera recorded all of it without understanding any of it.

Team Rocket's report later described "resource-sharing behavior" and "increased group compliance." It assigned measurable value to Gastly's stable compression and Houndour's reduced territorial aggression. Nothing in the report mentioned laughter. Rine saved his own account in the encrypted archive. > Gastly chose the standard ball rather than containment. > Houndour defended him during examination. > Both negotiated boundaries. > No forced correction required.

Facts could describe the same hour and still tell entirely different truths. Rine intended to preserve theirs.