Chương 4: Three Steps Apart

Training Cell Nineteen measured six meters by six and contained nothing that could burn. The walls were reinforced concrete. The ceiling light sat behind wire glass. A drain occupied the center of the floor, and an observation slit cut through the heavy door. Someone had welded a steel loop into the far wall for restraints. Rine examined every surface before setting Houndour's ball on the floor.

The Rocket Market listed everything a frightened new owner might be persuaded to buy: shock collars, restraint poles, muzzles, sedatives, scent punishers, and a booklet titled Dominance in Ten Days. Food appeared farther down the list. His thousand credits diminished quickly.

Raw canine diet, low grade — seven-day supply: 180 credits Electrolyte solution — three doses: 60 credits Burn-resistant feeding bowl: 35 credits Basic medical kit: 160 credits Fireproof blanket: 80 credits Emergency recall emitter rental: 100 credits He declined the shock collar and purchased a leather muzzle for seventy-five credits only because the facility required one outside the cell. After adding soap, bandages, and a pair of insulated gloves, he had 240 credits left.

The delivery tube deposited his purchases in a dented steel compartment. Rine divided the food into small portions. A starving Pokémon could kill herself if allowed to eat without restraint. Houndour's visible condition suggested several weeks of deprivation, perhaps most of her brief life. She needed warmth, water, protein, minerals, and time. Time was the one resource Gideon had deliberately limited. Rine took the emergency emitter in his left hand and released her. White light struck the floor.

Houndour materialized low and already moving. She was smaller than he expected. Not merely young—tiny. Her black coat clung to a narrow rib cage, and the pale bands around her ankles looked too large for her wasted legs. The ridges along her back flickered with thin golden current. Red eyes found Rine, widened, and transformed instantly into violence. She opened her mouth. Rine saw heat gather in the back of her throat. He threw himself sideways as Ember crossed the space between them.

Sparks scattered across the wall. Houndour pursued before he landed, teeth closing on the sleeve of his jacket and tearing through cloth. Electricity followed. The shock seized his forearm. His hand locked; the recall emitter struck the floor. Houndour shook her head violently, trying to deepen the bite. Rine kicked against the concrete and rolled with her rather than pulling away. The movement surprised her enough to loosen her jaws. He tore free, leaving fabric and a strip of skin behind.

Houndour spun toward him. Gold static climbed her spine. Identify. Condition: Starving; frightened; escalating elemental feedback Immediate risk: Involuntary discharge Recommended action: Reduce stimulation Rine stopped moving. Every instinct ordered him to retrieve the emitter. Instead, he lowered his gaze and turned his shoulders slightly away. Direct eye contact could be a challenge among canine Pokémon. Making himself smaller would communicate that he did not intend to compete for territory. Houndour growled.

Rine waited. The current across her spine intensified, then snapped into the floor in a yellow arc. Her legs buckled. She cried out—not the snarl of an attacking predator, but the thin, involuntary sound of an injured animal. The charge was hurting her. Rine moved slowly toward the food bowl. Her growl deepened. He set the first portion three meters from her and backed away. The smell reached her. Her nostrils fluttered, but she did not break eye contact.

"It's yours," Rine said. His voice sounded strange in the cell. He had barely spoken since the arena. Houndour did not understand the words. She understood distance. Once Rine sat against the opposite wall, she approached the bowl in short, suspicious steps. She sniffed, recoiled, circled, and finally seized a strip of meat. She swallowed it without chewing. Rine slid the electrolyte solution forward. Houndour fled from the moving bowl, striking the wall hard enough to yelp. He withdrew his hand.

For the next hour, they negotiated in inches. He never approached while she ate. He did not attempt to touch her. When the portion was gone, he waited twenty minutes before offering more. Houndour remained hostile, but hunger gradually took precedence over attacking him. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. After the fourth portion, she vomited. Rine's stomach sank. Identify showed inflammation, dehydration, and stress rather than obstruction.

He reduced the next serving and diluted it with electrolyte solution. Houndour snapped when he placed it down but did not lunge. That was the first victory. It felt too small to deserve the word. He remained in the cell until she curled against the far wall. Sleep came to her in abrupt collapses. Each time a pipe knocked or footsteps passed outside, Early Bird jolted her awake. She had learned that unconsciousness was dangerous. Rine understood that too. Near midnight, he reached for the ball.

Houndour's eyes opened.

"I'm going to recall you." Her lip lifted. He pressed the control. Red light touched her—and shattered. Houndour had actively resisted recall. Rine tried again. The ball rejected the command. The facility handbook claimed registered owners could recall assigned Pokémon at will. Reality, as usual, had declined to read the handbook. He slept against the door. When he woke, Houndour stood over him. Her nose hovered an inch from the blood dried beneath his torn sleeve. Her ribs moved quickly.

He remained motionless, pulse hammering against his throat. She sniffed his face. For one dangerous second, Rine thought she might bite. Then a light outside the cell switched on. Houndour sprang backward, barking in panic, and electricity exploded from her body. The discharge struck Rine in the chest. His heart seemed to stop. Every muscle locked. He fell sideways and struck his head against the door. The observation slit opened.

"Recall it," a guard ordered. Rine could not answer. Houndour crouched in the far corner. Smoke lifted from her coat. She was panting in pain, as frightened by the discharge as anyone outside the cell. The guard raised a tranquilizer rifle through the slit. Rine found his voice.

"Don't."

"You've lost control."

"She didn't attack."

"Move." The rifle aligned with Houndour's chest. Rine dragged himself between them.

"Frostfang."

"The drug could react with her mutation." He did not know whether that was true. The uncertainty was enough. The barrel hesitated.

"If she kills you," the guard said, "the asset returns to inventory." The slit closed. Rine lay on the floor until his muscles released. Houndour watched from the corner. Neither trusted the other. But when he placed breakfast between them, she waited until he had retreated exactly three steps rather than three meters. The second victory was smaller still. It mattered more. Rine's wounds complicated the following morning.

The bite on his forearm was shallow but ragged, and the electrical burn beneath it had raised a branching red mark toward his elbow. The Rocket infirmary charged sixty credits merely to examine it.

"No tendon involvement," the medic said.

"Tetanus booster is current. Keep it clean."

"And the electrical exposure?"

"Your heart is beating."

"That wasn't the question." The medic glanced at the red trainee bar on his watch.

"A cardiac scan costs eighty." Rine returned to the cell without one. Houndour smelled the fresh antiseptic and retreated. Rine realized the odor might be associated with Team Rocket's handlers. He washed most of it away and used plain water on the torn skin, accepting the increased infection risk to reduce her distress. That day, he introduced routine. Food arrived at the same times. Water remained in the same corner. Rine announced every movement involving the ball, door, or medical kit.

He kept his voice low and used the same words even though Houndour did not yet understand them. Predictability became the first kindness he could offer. The first attempt at cleaning her enclosure nearly ended in another attack. Rine moved the waste pan while Houndour ate. The scrape of metal across concrete triggered something immediate. She abandoned the bowl and charged, flame leaking between her teeth. Rine dropped the pan. She stopped over it, shaking.

The object resembled the restraint shovels used by handlers. Rine sat several feet away and waited for her breathing to slow. Then he placed his own hand on the pan. He turned it over, tapped it, and left it in the center of the room for her to investigate. Houndour approached after twenty minutes. She sniffed the metal and urinated on it.

"Fair," Rine said. He purchased a plastic scoop. On the fourth night, a siren woke them at two in the morning. Emergency shutters sealed the corridor while something large struck the walls outside. Houndour woke in full panic, discharging twice before Rine could stand. The first bolt grounded through the drain. The second struck the bedframe and filled the cell with blue sparks. Rine crouched beside the door. Houndour raced from wall to wall, unable to escape the alarm. He could not touch her.

He could not recall her. Words meant little. So he began reciting the Kanto type chart.

"Normal is weak to Fighting. Immune to Ghost. Fire is weak to Water, Ground, and Rock…" His voice shook at first. He continued.

"Water is weak to Grass and Electric. Electric is weak to Ground. Grass is weak to Fire, Ice, Poison, Flying, and Bug…" The familiar sequence steadied his breathing. Houndour continued pacing, but the harsh rhythm of her barking eased. By the time he reached Fairy, she had retreated to the corner and lowered herself to the floor. Outside, the escaped Pokémon gave one final roar. Heavy impacts followed, then silence. Rine kept talking. He described the routes between Saffron and Cerulean.

He explained why four-move limitations had always been an abstraction rather than sensible biology. He told Houndour about a world where Pokémon lived behind glass and light, where death could be undone by restarting and children saved entire regions between school assignments. She understood none of it. Understanding was not required. The sound told her where he was. Near dawn, Houndour fell asleep. Rine remained awake, watching the rise and fall of her narrow ribs.

A status message later reported that a recruit's Mankey had escaped, broken his jaw, and been subdued by a Machoke. The recruit lost two hundred credits for facility damage. No mention was made of whether the Mankey had been injured. The next six days formed a language without words. Three steps meant food. An open palm meant nothing hidden. Sitting sideways meant rest. Touching the Poké Ball produced fear, so Rine stopped attempting recall inside the cell.

He slept near the door and woke whenever Houndour paced through electrical pain. He learned her warning signs. A twitch in the left shoulder preceded Ember. Flattened ears and a rigid tail meant she might bite. Static gathering around her ankle bands signaled an involuntary discharge, while current along her jaw meant she was trying—poorly—to direct it. Houndour learned things about him in return. He did not take food after offering it. He did not strike her when she growled. He moved slowly after sleep.

When guards appeared, he placed himself between her and their weapons. On the seventh day, Rine set the bowl down and retreated. Houndour looked at the food, then at him. She carried one strip of meat to the center of the cell, stopping halfway between their walls. There she ate. The distance between them was still three meters. This time, she had chosen it. Rine marked the moment in the private section of his watch, beneath medical readings and feeding amounts. He did not assign it a percentage.

Trust was not a statistic that increased neatly after meat or commands. It was a decision Houndour could make today and withdraw tomorrow. That uncertainty made it real. Rine left the entry unsent. Rocket servers did not need access to everything that mattered between them. Neither did Gideon. Especially not Gideon, whose attention transformed every private strength into another possible chain.