Chapter 233: Mammon, How About You Just Become the Unova Champion?
"I will actually be angry!!"
Ho-Oh's transmission was unambiguous.
"Okay, okay. I hear you." Mammon blinked. "And I promise — trust my character here — the next favor won't be anything at the level of a Shiny Mega Rayquaza or a three-dragon Kyurem."
He delivered this with complete sincerity.
(The technical content of this promise was carefully specific. The black Shiny Rayquaza and Kyurem Complete had been dealt with. Future tasks, by definition, couldn't be those two again. The promise was true in the same way that most of Mammon's promises were true.)
"???"
Ho-Oh looked at him.
You have character?
She considered pressing the point, decided it was pointless, and accepted.
"Fine. Call me when something comes up."
The regret was a continuous low note in the background of everything she said and had been since approximately the moment she'd agreed to the original arrangement. She'd been genuinely naive about what "helping three times" would involve. The evidence was available in the form of her current physical condition.
"Goodbye~" Mammon waved, friendly and warm.
Ho-Oh made a sound that communicated several things without forming words, turned, and flew away.
This time she actually left.
Mammon stretched. The specific tension of a long battle leaving the body all at once.
All things considered, a good result.
Kyurem Complete had been seen — understood, on a practical level, rather than a theoretical one. The black Rayquaza's cooperation had deepened into something with more foundation behind it. Zekrom had been recovered, which anchored N's commitment to Team Rocket, which was a significant organizational gain. And Kyurem had issued a challenge rather than a refusal, which was, if anything, an invitation.
That last part was the piece Mammon was most interested in. Kyurem without Zekrom and Reshiram — base Kyurem, Black or White — was still formidable, but it was a different category of problem. Not easy. But one worth thinking about.
"Mammon, Mammon, look how many~"
Jirachi returned to him first, carrying an armload of rainbow feathers with the presentation energy of a child bringing a craft project. Victini arrived a half-second behind with its own collection, equally proud.
"Very good. You'll both get something nice when we get back."
Mammon ruffled both small heads at once.
Jirachi's eyes disappeared into its smile.
He looked around the ruins.
Ice. Ice everywhere. Ice spires, ice formations, ice-filled craters, ice coating the rubble of what had been the old League building. Kyurem Complete's work.
In the games, Opelucid City had been frozen by Kyurem in BW2's story, and the ending credits showed Drayden still working on clearing it. He'd thought of that while watching the battle unfold. This ice was going to be here for a while.
Especially the ice produced by Kyurem Complete.
He would, he decided, leave it as someone else's problem.
On another part of the ruins:
"—"
Genesect hit the ground and didn't move.
Leon's Incineroar had found its moment. One Flamethrower, clean connection.
"That's remarkable." Colress recalled Genesect and looked at Leon with genuine appreciation. "You're as impressive as your reputation."
He meant it completely without irony, which was sometimes the most unsettling thing about Colress.
He'd been two-on-one against Alder and Wallace, won that, then shifted to support Caitlin against Leon — which made the final configuration two-on-one against Leon — and still lost.
"Mammon mentioned," Caitlin said, returning her defeated Gallade to its ball, "that there are perhaps three trainers in the world who can reliably beat Leon in a straight fight. I believe today clarifies at least one of them."
"Mammon said that?" Leon raised an eyebrow. Something in his expression shifted in a way he didn't entirely account for. Being evaluated seriously by someone whose own evaluation he'd revised upward sharply over the past several hours was — notable.
Who were the other two? Giovanni? Dragon Master Lance?
He filed it and refocused.
"Either way — you've both lost. Can I ask you to cooperate from here?"
Caitlin smiled pleasantly and turned to look at something coming from the direction of the primary battle site.
A very large gold-and-blue shape approaching at low altitude.
Primal Kyogre. With Mammon somewhere in its proximity.
"It seems the main event is over," Caitlin said.
Leon's brow furrowed. Kyurem — already.
He'd been focused on the fight in front of him. But thinking back — yes, the sounds from that direction had faded a while ago. He hadn't registered it consciously until now.
That's how it ends.
He exhaled through his nose.
A short time later, both groups converged.
Alder, Cynthia, and Wallace — the latter having been collected from wherever Colress's Mega Metagross had deposited him — made their way toward the same location as Mammon's group. N and Zekrom arrived separately, Zekrom landing at a distance while N stood near it with an expression that was notably more settled than it had been at any point in the past several days.
"I trust the situation over there is concluded?" Alder asked, looking at Mammon.
"Completely." Mammon's tone was the pleasantly conversational kind that suggested an uncomfortable conversation was coming.
Alder had already been thinking about that.
The worst-case outcome. It had happened. Kyurem — which the League had specifically recruited and directed toward this situation — had been defeated by the person they'd intended it to disrupt. Three legendaries, multiple Champion-tier executives, and whatever Colress's contributions were — and Mammon had handled it.
The full picture: five Champion-tier trainers. Just on the operational side, not counting Giovanni, who had been present with Primal Groudon and doing — something, Alder wasn't entirely sure what, but probably not nothing.
Alder privately thought: if this were the Unova League instead of Team Rocket, the conference room would be doing backflips.
"You owe me an explanation," Mammon said, in a tone that was observational rather than accusatory. He settled into the chair Jirachi had procured for him — Jirachi now standing to his left with hands on hips, Victini to his right in matching pose — and crossed one leg over the other.
Alder looked at the two small creatures flanking Mammon like particularly compact bodyguards, both radiating aggressive confidence, and experienced a brief silence.
"What do you want?" he said.
The others — Steven, Cynthia, Leon, Wallace — were quiet. This was between the Unova League and the person they'd just spent several chapters trying to check. It wasn't their conversation.
"What do you think, Champion Alder?" Mammon returned it.
Alder inhaled steadily.
"The Unova League will drop the arrest warrant for Team Rocket and formally recognize your business operations in Unova."
He said it without dramatizing it, because the time for drama had been before this conversation. He knew what Mammon wanted. He'd known since Steven told him. He'd been hoping to avoid it. He wasn't avoiding it anymore.
The recognition of Team Rocket's commercial operations as legitimate — as businesses rather than a criminal organization — was the transformation Mammon had been building toward everywhere he went. In Alola. In Hoenn. And now here.
The parliamentary opposition would be significant. Alder planned to spend some time being very direct with the relevant legislators about what the alternative was.
Mammon applauded.
The applause was unhurried and complete.
"Good start, Champion Alder. But not quite enough."
"What else."
"First." Mammon held up a finger. "Five billion. Emotional damages. Your operation with Kyurem caused considerable disruption to both myself and N."
Alder felt a specific pain develop behind his eyes.
Five billion. That was — not a small number. That was a number that had implications for where other funding didn't go for a while.
"Second." The finger was joined by a second. "I'll need the Unova League to officially promote several of our commercial enterprises."
Alder's expression went through a sequence.
Official. Promotion. Of Team Rocket's commercial operations.
By the Unova League.
He thought about how that would look to the Kanto League, which had spent decades treating Team Rocket as its primary criminal enforcement priority. He thought about what the messaging around that would be. He thought about the international dimension.
He thought for a while.
"Mammon," he said, finally, "how would you feel about becoming the Unova Champion?"
(End of Chapter)
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