Chapter 238: Mammon, I Want to Join Team Rocket!
Ten o'clock the next morning.
Elesa slipped out quietly and drew the door shut behind her with care.
She turned.
Caitlin was standing there in a fitted black dress, expression perfectly composed, watching her with eyes that said several things without moving.
Elesa nearly had a heart attack.
"Good morning, Miss Caitlin."
She recovered quickly. Whatever she was feeling about this moment, she wasn't going to show it. Caitlin was Caitlin — different standing, different history with Mammon, different everything. The basic courtesies applied.
"You're coming out of Mammon's room." Caitlin's voice was the kind of level that takes effort to maintain.
Elesa didn't answer. She moved her hair slightly to the side, covering the marks on her neck, a gesture that was technically casual and actually very much not.
Caitlin saw it.
"We're leaving Unova soon," Caitlin said, after a moment. Her footsteps continued past. "You and Mammon won't necessarily see each other much after that. Why complicate things?"
Elesa watched her go toward the stairs.
She understood what Caitlin wasn't saying. Mammon was leaving. The arrangement — such as it was — had a natural endpoint. Getting more invested than the situation warranted was Elesa's problem to manage, not anyone else's.
"And Anthea and Concordia?" Elesa asked, because she was going to ask it.
Caitlin paused on the stairs.
"They're N's sisters." The words came out measured and certain. "Nothing more than that."
Which was true in a specific way and not true in a broader way, and Caitlin was clearly choosing the interpretation that served her current equilibrium.
Elesa thought about this.
She got that Caitlin found Anthea and Concordia manageable. They'd positioned themselves from the start in a way that didn't claim more than what they had — something that the long situation with Mammon had probably taught them was safer than the alternative. They were contained.
Caitlin apparently didn't feel Elesa was contained.
Fair enough.
"Don't develop thoughts you shouldn't have," Caitlin added, not looking back, and went down.
Elesa stood in the hallway alone for a moment.
She was taller than Caitlin. This was a fact. It did not, functionally, make her feel like the one with the advantage in this conversation.
She thought about what Caitlin had said.
She thought about the fact that Nimbasa had planes with service to every major city, including the ones in Kanto.
She thought about the fact that she had vacation days she hadn't used.
She went back into the room, lay back down, and spent a while looking at the ceiling.
Lunch. Eleven o'clock departure, food found at a small place in the island village.
"Mammon."
They were walking toward the Abundance Shrine location. Elesa had been quiet since breakfast, and the walk was giving her time to settle whatever she was settling.
"What is it?"
"I want to join Team Rocket."
Mammon blinked.
Caitlin glanced at Elesa with an expression that didn't commit to anything.
"Where did that come from," Mammon said.
"I thought Team Rocket was something much worse." Elesa's voice was even, stating a position she'd thought through rather than one she was still working out. "But what you run isn't that. Is it."
These months had given her a clear view. She'd seen the organization from closer than almost anyone outside it. The legendary Pokémon, the battle scales, the operations — but also the structure underneath all of it. The app. The merit system. The employment contracts for trainers. The specific policies about what Team Rocket didn't do, which were as defining as the things it did.
The reputation Mammon's Team Rocket had inherited from its predecessor was genuinely bad. The organization that existed now was — different. She'd been trying to figure out how different for a while.
"Not exactly your traditional criminal syndicate, no," Mammon said.
"Then I want in." Flat. Decided.
Mammon looked at her for a moment.
"All right." He smiled. "You're a Gym Leader. That's more than enough for a regular executive position. Set up your account when we get back. If you want a higher rank, you'll have to work for it."
"I know."
"And you can keep your job."
"That was going to be my next point."
The Gym Leader position. The modeling work. Those were hers — she'd built them, they were part of who she was, and the idea of giving them up for an organizational affiliation hadn't entered her head.
"Wouldn't have it any other way. Women should have their own careers." Mammon said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
Something in Elesa's expression moved.
She controlled it.
Caitlin observed this entire exchange from beside them, processed the information about Elesa's new status within the organization, and filed it under a mental category she was being deliberate about not naming directly.
A Gym Leader. Nice face. Very long legs. Now with a formal organizational connection.
And apparently my current assessment of her containment level was incorrect.
Caitlin adjusted her evaluation. Upward.
The path continued deeper into the island. The Abundance Shrine's location had come from a local resident — there was nothing secretive about it, the island's mythology about the Forces of Nature was the kind of oral tradition that got passed down as community knowledge, not something hidden.
Thirty minutes of walking through old forest growth brought them to a shrine structure that sat quietly among the trees: old stonework, clean surfaces, clearly maintained by someone. Regular visitors.
Landorus had a good reputation. That tracked.
"How do we actually get Landorus here?" Caitlin looked at the shrine, then at Mammon.
"Simple."
He released two Poké Balls.
Therian Tornadus and Incarnate Thundurus materialized in the air above the shrine path. They immediately looked at each other with the specific mutual animosity of two entities that have been annoying each other for longer than anyone else present has been alive.
"Hold off on the fight for a minute," Mammon said. "Help me first."
Both Forces of Nature looked at him. Then at each other. Then, with the resigned cooperation of things that remember exactly what happened when they didn't cooperate, they agreed.
The incident with Dark Mewtwo was fresh.
"Good. Bring Landorus here. And see if you can get Enamorus too while you're at it."
This was exactly the mechanism the legends described: when Tornadus and Thundurus fought, Landorus came to stop them. The game had confirmed it — arrive at the Abundance Shrine with both, and Landorus appeared.
Enamorus was a longer shot. Nobody, including Tornadus and Thundurus, seemed to know where it was.
"Long?" Tornadus tilted its head and made a sound of uncertainty.
"You don't know where Enamorus is either?"
"Long~"
"That's fine."
Mammon nodded. Both Forces of Nature were in the dark about Enamorus's location. Not surprising — it was the least-documented of the four, the newest in terms of human records of its existence.
"Bring Landorus. That's enough for now."
Tornadus and Thundurus rose into the sky without further discussion.
The wind started first. Then the clouds — heavy, low, the particular atmospheric disturbance that each of them generated individually compounding into something more significant than either would have produced alone. The sky over the island darkened.
The two Forces of Nature were not fighting yet. But they were adjacent to each other and neither was happy about it, and the weather around them was a direct expression of this.
Every time, Landorus thought, somewhere in the distance.
These two. These absolute two. Every single time, without fail, without any apparent consideration of the consequences, without any apparent ability to learn—
Can't leave them alone for five minutes.
It was already moving toward the source of the disturbance before it had consciously decided to. This was not the first time. It would not be the last time. Someone had to manage this.
Go deal with them and then go find Enamorus.
Landorus had plans. Enamorus was waiting. These two were going to make it late for its plans again.
Absolutely unbelievable.
A white cloud in the distance, moving with purpose.
Landorus, coming to sort out the situation.
(End of Chapter)
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you