Enzo didn't rent comfort.
He rented control.
Cerulean City had clean hotels, polite staff, and warm lighting. It also had cameras, digital guest records, curious employees, and too many strangers who noticed patterns.
A warehouse didn't remember anything.
He found it on the northern edge of the city, where the streets stopped pretending to be pretty. Old industrial blocks. Storage yards surrounded by chain-link fences. Delivery trucks that came and went at odd hours without anyone asking why. The building looked useless at first glance: a wide concrete rectangle, a tired metal door, a sign that had been painted over twice.
Perfect.
Inside, it smelled like dust and abandoned work. The last tenant had used it for parts that didn't matter anymore: broken shelving, cracked crates, bent pipes, old panels stacked in careless piles. Nothing valuable. Nothing that would make anyone curious enough to come back.
The owner was the kind of man who didn't ask questions as long as the cash was real.
Enzo paid upfront, signed under a name that wouldn't tie to anything important, and kept the agreement short.
When it was done, he brought Proton and Ronnie inside and walked the space in silence, mapping it with his eyes. Entrances. Corners. Where sound would carry. Where a fight could happen without being seen from outside.
Ronnie whistled, his voice echoing slightly. "This is depressing."
"It's quiet," Enzo replied. "That's better."
Proton rubbed the back of his neck, still annoyed at the memory of the Crobat ride. "And we're sleeping here?"
Enzo nodded toward the center of the warehouse floor.
"We already have a solution."
From his bag, he pulled the folded fabric and poles of the tent they had used on Trial Island. They set it up between two stacks of old crates, sheltered from any direct line of sight from the main door. Simple. Familiar. A small island of fabric inside a bigger, emptier concrete shell.
When it was standing, the warehouse stopped feeling abandoned. It started feeling like a base.
Enzo didn't waste time. He started clearing space immediately, moving junk aside, dragging shelves into corners, turning the open floor into something usable. A straight lane for movement drills. An open circle for sparring. A corner for water, supplies, and spare gear.
Then he found the basement door, half-hidden behind a stack of rotting pallets.
He pulled it open and the air changed instantly. Cooler. Still. The kind of quiet that swallowed sound.
He carried the incubators down himself. One by one. No rush. No mistakes. He lined them up along the wall and checked the temperature twice. The eggs went in. The indicator lights settled into a steady, rhythmic glow.
Hypno was already down there.
Not waiting for permission. Not negotiating a role. Just standing close, watching the incubators like they were a mission objective.
Enzo glanced at him. "Good."
Hypno's eyes didn't leave the eggs.
Enzo adjusted one of the settings, then straightened. "Same job as before. Keep a good eye on them. If anything changes, you tell me immediately."
A calm thought brushed Enzo's mind in return.
Understood.
Enzo nodded once. That was enough.
He went back up the steps, leaving Hypno in the basement with the steady hum of incubators and nineteen small futures.
At the top, he closed the door most of the way. Not locked. Just controlled.
Then he turned back to the warehouse floor.
"Alright," Enzo said.
Proton's posture shifted, ready. Ronnie cracked his knuckles like he was about to fight the building itself.
Enzo looked at the empty space they'd cleared, and in his mind, it was already a battlefield.
"Ok, now we work."
The routine formed fast.
Day One started with movement. Footwork. Spacing. Commands that had to be obeyed instantly. No hesitation. No confusion. Enzo ran it like an instructor, not a friend. Calm voice, hard standard.
Proton adapted first.
He had been with Enzo longer. He understood what Enzo meant by efficiency. When Enzo corrected him, Proton didn't argue. He adjusted. When Enzo demonstrated a drill once, Proton replicated it the second time with almost no wasted motion.
Ronnie struggled more.
He had energy, instinct, and the desire to win, but he was messy with it. He overcommitted. He rushed. He treated training like something you could brute-force.
Enzo corrected him without mercy. Proton reinforced it without kindness.
By the end of Day Two, Ronnie stopped taking it personally. By Day Four, he started improving.
Their Pokémon trained in blocks. Short bursts. Stopping before fatigue made them sloppy. Reinforcing basics until basics became instinct.
Froakie moved like a blade, always trying to find the fastest line to victory. Sprigatito learned quickly, sharp-eyed and smug about it. Litten treated every drill like an argument it intended to win.
Enzo watched them and kept his face neutral, but he memorized everything. Attitude became habit. Habit became a problem if you didn't shape it early.
And every day, Enzo returned to one problem.
Deino.
The dragon hit hard for its level. Too hard. It had power in its small body that didn't match what it was supposed to be yet.
But the accuracy was awful.
Because Deino didn't see.
It snapped at motion it couldn't confirm. It lunged at sound and missed by inches. It fired attacks on instinct and hit nothing but air. When it connected, it was brutal.
When it didn't, it was useless.
Enzo refused to let that flaw survive.
Day Three: sound drills. Controlled footfalls. A moving target that never spoke, never teased, never gave Deino a free clue. Day Four: vibration drills. Deino forced to read the floor, forced to learn that the world wasn't just noise; it was pressure, rhythm, timing. Day Five: sparring with strict rules. No reckless charges. No wasted attacks. Misses had consequences. Overcommitting meant eating a counter.
It was exhausting work.
For Deino, because the world was frustration and hunger and the constant insult of missing what it wanted to break. For Enzo, because every mistake had teeth.
But slowly, the misses became closer. The lunges stopped being wild.
And on Day Six, Deino landed a clean hit on a moving target without being guided by Enzo's voice.
Enzo didn't praise it. He just nodded once.
Progress.
That night, Hypno's message came without panic, but it came fast.
They hatched.
Enzo went down to the basement.
The air was warm. The incubators hummed softly. Hypno stood in front of them like a guard at a vault.
Two eggs were gone.
In their place were two tiny, dark-furred baby rats, blinking up at the world like they were offended it existed. Their ears twitched. Their noses worked the air. They were small enough to fit in Enzo's hands, and still, they looked like they were already planning crimes.
Alolan Rattata.
Enzo stared at them for a second longer than he meant to.
They were… ridiculous.
Aggressively cute in a way that annoyed him.
He reached down, and one of them tried to nip his finger. Not hard. More like a threat from a creature that weighed nothing.
Enzo exhaled once, almost a laugh.
Upstairs, he called Proton and Ronnie.
"I'm giving them to you," Enzo said.
Proton received the first one.
He took the tiny creature into his gloved hands. The baby Rattata yawned, a massive, squeaky yawn, and immediately curled up into a ball in Proton's palm, seeking warmth.
Proton's expression softened for a split second. Then, realizing Enzo was watching, his face snapped shut like a steel trap. He cleared his throat loudly, forcing his jaw into a hard, stoic line. He looked away, staring at the wall with intense seriousness, refusing to admit that he was holding something adorable.
"It's acceptable," Proton muttered, trying to sound tactical while cradling it as gently as possible.
Ronnie got the second.
Ronnie didn't have a filter. He didn't try to be cool.
"Yes!" Ronnie cheered.
He grabbed the baby Rattata and, in a burst of pure, chaotic excitement, tossed the tiny creature high into the air like he was celebrating a winning goal.
"Look at you! You little criminal!"
The baby Rattata's eyes bulged. It squeaked in absolute terror, its tiny legs flailing helplessly in the freefall.
"Ronnie!" Enzo snapped.
Ronnie caught the Pokémon expertly on the way down, grinning like a maniac.
"What? He loves it! Look at him!"
The Rattata was shivering violently, digging its claws into Ronnie's shirt, traumatized by its first five seconds of life.
"He is terrified," Enzo said, his voice flat. "It's a newborn, Ronnie. Not a juggler's ball. Stop throwing him."
Ronnie pouted, petting the shaking rat aggressively. "You're no fun, boss. We're just bonding. Right, killer?"
The Rattata just buried its face in Ronnie's shirt, deciding that hiding was the only way to survive this trainer.
The next day, the rivalry got worse.
Nobody knew how it started. It didn't matter.
Froakie, Sprigatito, and Litten began competing over everything. Who finished a drill first. Who landed more clean hits. Who got praise, even if Enzo rarely gave any. They postured, they shoved, they stared at each other like three tiny kings fighting over a crown made of pride.
Enzo ignored it until it stopped being harmless.
Then he caught it.
Not a fight. A conversation.
Froakie sat near Deino, posture casual, like it was sharing secrets. Deino listened, head tilted, sniffing the air, trying to interpret tone and intent.
Froakie's eyes kept flicking toward where Sprigatito was training.
It wasn't hard to understand. It was recruiting.
It was trying to convince Deino to help "solve" the rivalry with numbers.
Enzo stepped in.
"No."
Froakie jumped like it had been caught stealing.
Enzo's voice stayed calm, but it carried weight. "We don't target allies. Ever."
Froakie made a small, innocent gesture, like it couldn't possibly be guilty.
Enzo stared at it.
Froakie looked away, then sent the emotional equivalent of a shrug, the kind that meant: it was a joke.
Enzo didn't buy it for a second.
He turned away, rubbing his face once with his palm, and an ugly thought flickered through him.
If he's like this now… before the Dark typing… what happens later?
The week moved fast after that.
They were tired, but they were stable. The warehouse kept them out of sight. The tent made the nights familiar. The basement stayed quiet except for the hum of machines and Hypno's constant watch.
They weren't comfortable. They were safe.
And for men like them, that was rare.
On the last day of the week, Enzo went back into Cerulean, alone.
Not for shopping. Not for information.
For a person.
He saw him near one of the quieter transport hubs, stepping off a bus like he'd been expecting to be swallowed by the city.
A man with tired eyes and careful posture. Clean credentials printed on paper, but weariness written into his body. A small suitcase in one hand. A folder held close to his chest like it mattered more than clothes.
He looked like someone who had learned to make himself smaller in rooms full of louder people.
Professor Leni.
Enzo's gaze locked onto him.
A strange, quiet satisfaction settled in his chest, not warmth, not kindness. Just the sense of a piece clicking into place.
Professor Leni, Enzo thought.
Finally.