Chapter 234: Mammon: I'm Going to Announce to the World — I'm Becoming King!
"Mammon. How about you just become the Unova Champion?"
Alder had thought for a long time before saying it.
The reaction was immediate across the entire assembled group — Caitlin, Kagura, Colress behind Mammon; Leon, Cynthia, Steven, Wallace across from him. A shared moment of universal blank processing.
…Did he just say that.
Wallace's eyes were very wide.
The Champion of Unova is asking Team Rocket's leader to become the Champion of Unova.
"Are you serious, Champion Alder?" Mammon recovered first, looking at him with an expression that was amused but attentive.
"Completely serious." Alder didn't pause.
He had thought this through. Fighting Team Rocket — a complete non-option. The Unova League could not win that war. Mammon was too strong, his organization too capable, and more practically: Mammon had Primal Kyogre, which gave him the theoretical capacity to simply end the conversation in a catastrophic direction. You couldn't back someone into a corner who could pull the table over on the way down.
And driving Mammon out — which had been the original goal — was apparently also off the table now.
So why, Alder had thought, did it have to be framed as opposition at all?
"If you're willing — I'll transfer the Champion's title at any time." He kept his voice level. "Today, if you want."
The official promotion of Team Rocket's commercial operations — that had been the demand that stuck. Recognizing their businesses as legitimate was difficult but explainable. The Kanto League would have something to say about it, but the Unova League could frame it as having no alternative and be approximately correct. Explaining to Kanto why the Unova League was actively marketing Team Rocket's enterprises was a different order of problem entirely.
But if Mammon were the Champion of Unova?
Then the conversation changed. "We recruited a talented trainer away from a criminal background" was not the same conversation as "we endorse a criminal organization." And the talent in question would be bringing: Caitlin, N, Kagura, Colress — all of whom were, if they followed Mammon, walking into the Unova League as effectively the new Elite Four.
The upgrade to Unova's raw capabilities was difficult to calculate because the number kept coming out too large.
"Ha." Mammon looked at him with something between amusement and genuine appreciation for the maneuver. "Champion Alder, you are seriously funny."
"Tempting offer, genuinely. But I'm going to have to decline."
He didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. One regional Championship as the price for aligning with the established League? He had access to the Kanto Championship if he wanted it — Champion Lance was right there on the schedule. One region wasn't the point.
"I see." Alder absorbed this without visible change of expression.
He'd known the probability was low. Hearing it confirmed was still a small deflation.
Across the field, Steven and Cynthia and Leon were equally unsurprised. If the formula had worked, any of them would have offered the same thing without needing to be asked. The calculus was simple: Champion-level trainer with full Legendary roster and a willing organizational backing, in exchange for one title? An obvious transaction.
The fact that Mammon didn't want it said something about what he did want, which was a harder conversation.
"Five billion — we can do that," Alder said, returning to the specifics. "The official promotion of your enterprises — I need to take that back to Goodshow. That's not a decision I can make alone."
"Of course. I'll give you time." Mammon tilted his head slightly, and the smile took on a particular quality. "Though I do have a temper, Champion Alder. The Kyurem situation left me in a fairly unhappy mood."
There it is, Alder thought.
The threat was present but not aggressive — more like a weather forecast than a demand. Information about what the environment was, delivered cheerfully.
"Team Rocket genuinely wants a good working relationship with the Unova League," Mammon added, and the pleasant tone returned immediately. "Personally, I just want to run businesses and make money."
He stood, waved to the assembled group, and turned.
"We'll leave you to it, then. Champions, until we meet again."
Mammon walked away. Caitlin, Kagura, Colress, N all followed. The young Rayquaza drifted upward and circled once before heading off. Primal Kyogre descended briefly, picked up Mammon's group on its back, and rose again.
Alder watched this departure.
After.
"He's getting bolder." Wallace's voice was quiet. "In Hoenn, he was more contained. Every interaction since has been incrementally more direct."
"His strength keeps growing." Steven exhaled slowly. "And he knows it. Every legendary he adds to his roster changes the calculation again. He's been doing this systematically."
"What do you think his actual goal is?" Leon asked.
Nobody answered immediately.
"It's my fault," Giovanni said.
Several people looked at him.
"Not entirely yours," Wallace said, with the specific tone of someone who means it. "You couldn't have predicted all of this."
Giovanni smiled faintly and didn't argue the point.
"We should head to Lacunosa," Alder said. "I need to contact Goodshow, and I need to assess the damage before we move to Opelucid."
He looked around at the ruins — ice formations, flooded areas visible in the distance, the specific desolation of a battlefield that was also a historical site.
"Though first — how does Lacunosa look?"
It didn't look good.
The road to Lacunosa Town was informative in the kind of way that ruins the morning.
Sections of forest dry-scorched from Desolate Land's influence. Streams reduced to bare rock by the extreme heat. And then, as they approached Lacunosa itself, the opposite: water, spreading, the runoff from Primordial Sea's rainfall having accumulated in every low-lying area.
Lacunosa Town was partially flooded. Ankle-deep in places, deeper at the low end. And over all of it, a thin coat of frost — Kyurem Complete's ambient cold having carried this far.
"Kyogre was trying not to expand the effect," Steven said, looking at it. "This is the restrained version."
"And Kyurem's cold reached here without any specific ability," Alder added. "Just baseline presence."
That's what Kyurem Complete was.
Wallace thought about the frozen sky above the ruins, about the ice that had formed on Kyogre's scales in seconds during the battle, and felt retrospectively grateful that Groudon had been there to split the weather.
"At least Groudon's range was controlled," he said.
"Barely," Steven said.
They walked through the outskirts of Lacunosa, Looker's people already on site coordinating with local emergency response.
Alder watched the cleanup operation underway and thought about the conversation he was going to have with Goodshow.
"Thank you," he said, to the group around him. "All of you. I know we didn't accomplish what we came here for. But I genuinely don't know how we would have handled any of this without the support."
"We're all League," Steven said simply.
"Besides," Cynthia added, in a tone that was dry without being unkind, "I suspect we'll all meet Mammon again. This doesn't feel finished."
"No," Alder agreed. "It doesn't."
"Rest first," Leon said practically. "If you want — Unova's a long trip from everywhere. We don't all have to rush back."
Alder nodded, appreciating the offer more than he showed. "Stay as long as you like. Consider it a working vacation."
The castle. Evening.
"Did you catch Kyurem?" Kagura asked.
"No. It's not that simple." Mammon made a somewhat tired gesture.
Kagura made a small sound of genuine disappointment. She liked dragons.
"Mammon." N had found a moment when there were fewer people in the immediate vicinity. "Thank you. For bringing Zekrom back. Genuinely."
"We made an agreement. I kept it."
"I know. But—" N shook his head slightly. "Whatever the circumstance, I'm grateful. And going forward: whatever you need from me, as long as it doesn't cross my lines, I'll do it."
He said this with the particular seriousness of someone who has thought about it and means it, not someone filling conversational space. N knew he'd committed himself here. He wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
"We're all in this together now," Mammon said. "And I'll tell you what your lines are — the things I'd never ask — so you don't have to worry about it. The organization doesn't work the way you're imagining."
N was quiet for a moment.
"All right."
"In the meantime: get stronger. You're an executive now. Relying entirely on Zekrom doesn't cut it at this level. You need your own ground to stand on."
N had genuinely exceptional raw ability — the natural relationship with Pokémon, the instinctive bond, the fact that wild Pokémon would willingly fight alongside him because of what he was rather than any formal training regimen. But that potential had never been developed into something systematic.
"And you can draw from the organization's roster as a signing bonus. Ultra Beasts, pseudo-legendaries — pick something and start developing it alongside your existing team."
"I understand."
He'd lost to Cynthia today without Zekrom. That was an honest data point. He wasn't going to pretend he'd performed well.
"Download the app and have Concordia walk you through it. She knows how everything works."
N did.
He created his account. Logged in. Looked at the interface.
This is very sophisticated for an organization that operated out of mountain bases and parking garages when I last had any information about it.
He explored the menus. Full item catalog, mission board, merit point system, redemption store with what appeared to be actual legendary Pokémon listed as rewards—
He found the forum.
He found the trending thread.
He saw two names he recognized.
Nora. Touko.
N stared at his phone for a while.
Those two are in this.
He had met them, briefly, a handful of times. They were both — genuinely good people. Genuinely. The kind of trainers who loved their Pokémon as partners, who took the world seriously, who would have been horrified to be affiliated with the organization he'd understood Team Rocket to be.
Except, apparently, they weren't horrified. They were active forum participants.
He sat with this for a while.
Mammon, elsewhere in the castle, was on his phone.
"Chakra."
"Here, Lord Mammon. What are your orders?"
Chakra's voice was respectful in the specific way of someone who had learned their lesson about a particular topic.
"I have a task for you. Take the Goldenrod Radio Tower. Quietly."
"Understood. But — may I ask why, my Lord?"
The Goldenrod Radio Tower was significant infrastructure. One of the larger broadcast installations in the Kanto-Johto corridor.
But it was, at the end of the day, a radio tower. For broadcasting.
"I'm going to announce to the world," Mammon said, "that I'm becoming King."
"…I'm sorry?"
(End of Chapter)
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