Chapter 259: I Took Out Team Rocket's Former Leader — We're Legitimate Businessmen Now
"Who are you?"
Paul turned, looking at Mammon as he approached.
"Mammon — you can just call me Mammon. Saw you training just now — looked pretty interesting."
Mammon glanced at Paul's Pokémon — Torterra, Electivire, and an Ursaring — all radiating serious strength. Had to admit, Paul's training methods were harsh, but if a Pokémon could genuinely hold up under that regimen, its actual strength really did leap forward substantially. In the final battle between Paul and Ash at the Lily of the Valley Conference, Paul had used the very same lineup he'd freshly built in Sinnoh — and if not for Infernape's overwhelming, character-defining surge of power, Ash might genuinely not have been a match for him. Paul's raw talent as a trainer really was beyond question.
"Your training methods are pretty extreme. Not every Pokémon can handle training like that — honestly, it comes across as borderline abusive," Mammon said, tilting his head slightly.
"That's none of your business," Paul said flatly, recalling Torterra and the rest, hands in his pockets, ready to leave. He'd never cared what outsiders thought of him — cold, cruel, whatever people wanted to call it, he didn't care.
"Everyone's got their own way of raising Pokémon — I'm not that rigid about it. As long as it actually makes them stronger, and the Pokémon itself isn't fighting the process, then it's a legitimate method," Mammon said, unhurried, offering no real judgment on Paul's methods either way. Every trainer's philosophy differed, after all — you could call Paul's approach a bit extreme, sure, but you couldn't say chasing raw strength was inherently wrong. Put another way: as long as Paul's own Pokémon didn't resent it, there was nothing wrong with what he was doing.
Sure, some might point out that in canon, Chimchar never had its potential unlocked under Paul, only fully blossoming once it ended up with Ash. But really, what Chimchar needed was recognition, trust, encouragement — things Paul, at that point in his life, simply couldn't offer. Paul had personally witnessed Chimchar unleash a burst of that special Blaze power, which was exactly why he'd caught it in the first place — he'd always wanted to draw that potential back out of it, he'd just gone about it the wrong way.
But not every Pokémon shared Chimchar's need for that kind of validation. Plenty of proud, competitive Pokémon genuinely needed exactly this kind of harsh training to push their potential and bodies further past their limits. And that was something Ash simply couldn't provide — he cared too much about his Pokémon to push them that hard.
"Still, you're after real power, aren't you?"
Mammon's words made Paul's steps falter slightly.
He did want power, genuinely. He'd watched, firsthand, his own brother Reggie go from full of promise to ultimately giving up on being a trainer entirely. That whole experience had shaken his world to its core, and it was what had set him thinking hard about his own path. So he wanted strength — he wanted to beat Kamishiro, the man who'd once defeated his brother.
"What are you getting at?" Paul turned back, staring Mammon dead in the eye.
"Training alone, battling weak trainers here and there — that's not going to be enough to make you strong fast enough to actually reach your goal," Mammon said, the corner of his mouth curling upward. "You need a better environment. And better Pokémon."
"Are you saying you can help me with that?" Paul's expression stayed flat — he was a coolly rational person by nature.
"Of course. As long as you're worth the investment, I can give you exactly what you're after," Mammon said, tone easy and relaxed. "Opponents. An environment worth training in. And rare, valuable pseudo-legendaries, Ultra Beasts — even legendary Pokémon themselves. Get your hands on those, train them properly, and your strength climbs a whole lot faster. Isn't that right?"
Mammon figured Paul's ceiling was genuinely Champion-tier. After all, in Pokémon Journeys, Paul hadn't shown any real interest in the World Coronation Series — but for Ash's sake, he'd specifically trained a Gyarados, a Garchomp, and a Metagross, matched respectively against Lance, Cynthia, and Steven, and sought Ash out before the Masters Eight opened just to run training battles with him. Even so, the final tally had come out one win, two losses — which said plenty about how strong Paul had actually become by that point, given Ash himself had already broken into the Top 8 Masters by then.
Paul's eyes flickered, thinking it over. Had to admit, he was at least somewhat tempted. Mammon wasn't wrong — genuinely rare, high-quality Pokémon resources were scarce in this world, especially rare Pokémon with guaranteed strong potential. Not every individual pseudo-legendary was created equal, after all — even a pseudo-legendary with mediocre stats wasn't worth training, as far as Paul was concerned.
"What do you want in return?" Paul understood well enough there was no such thing as a free lunch. Whatever you wanted to get, even something that looked free on the surface, always had a hidden price tag attached somewhere.
"Join my organization. Contribute your strength to it."
"What organization?" Paul's brow furrowed — he was starting to doubt whether anything Mammon had said was even true.
"You can pick one from this list. Oh, and Lady, same goes for you — I was originally going to let you choose once we got to the villa."
Rather than answer directly, Mammon pulled a tablet out of his bag and opened a page on it.
Paul glanced at it and his eyes narrowed slightly; Platinum's gaze drifted over too, genuinely curious about whatever Pokémon list Mammon was offering.
"Ten Ultra Beast species in total, every one of them with base stats rivaling pseudo-legendaries, and excellent individual potential to boot," Mammon said, smiling as he explained to Paul.
Ten, exactly — counting Kartana and Guzzlord's paired form as one and the same. Paul's expression shifted slightly, his gaze sweeping over the images of these Ultra Beasts one after another — sure, they all looked bizarre, wildly varied in shape. But Paul didn't care about a Pokémon's looks. Strong was strong, full stop.
"What exactly is your organization?" Still, Paul didn't act on impulse. The Pokémon on offer were tempting, sure, but he was a man of principle.
"Team Rocket," Mammon said, not dodging this time.
"The evil organization out of Kanto?"
"That's the one."
Paul fell silent, eyeing Mammon with a wary, unsettled look. He'd traveled with his brother through Kanto before, so naturally he'd heard of Team Rocket's "reputation." And this guy just now had said — his organization? Team Rocket was his organization?
If he hadn't sensed that turning and walking away right now might not be safe, Paul would already have pulled out his phone to call the police. Damn it, is Team Rocket just casually strolling around the city in broad daylight now, trying to recruit random passersby? Is the Jubilife police department completely asleep at the wheel?
Paul was legitimately alarmed.
"No need to look at me like that. Sure, it's Team Rocket — but a while back I 'took care of' the previous leader and took the position myself." Mammon waved a hand dismissively.
Even Paul knew Team Rocket was an evil organization. Had to say, their old reputation really had traveled far — apparently anyone who'd even heard the name knew to be wary of them, which was quite the accomplishment, actually.
"?" Paul shot him a look of pure confusion, and Platinum blinked too. "I already took care of the previous leader and took his spot" — you're just saying that out loud, big guy? Just like that?
"Team Rocket, as it stands now, isn't the same evil organization it used to be. We don't go around robbing people — we run legitimate business operations these days," Mammon said, unbothered.
"If you don't believe me, we can sign a contract. I won't force you to do anything like stealing other people's Pokémon. How's that sound?"
Mammon figured turning around Team Rocket's public image was going to be a long, uphill battle. Not that it mattered, though — building a fresh Team Rocket while carrying the weight of its old reputation had its own kind of fun to it.
Platinum said nothing. You really want to say that again to my face?
"A contract?" Paul felt like he was learning something new today. An organization that was supposedly evil, and it wanted to sign a contract with him???
"Exactly. What do you say?" Mammon felt he was showing genuine good faith here — he'd always considered himself the type to go to great lengths for good talent. Back in the ancient dynasties, if there'd been a "visiting the thatched cottage three times" kind of legend, it definitely should've been him doing the visiting.
"..." Paul hesitated now.
He'd originally had zero intention of joining anything. Sure, given his own training philosophy, he pushed his Pokémon hard — but underneath the cold exterior, he wasn't actually a bad person at heart. Joining an evil organization was genuinely something he couldn't bring himself to do. But if the current Team Rocket really was what Mammon described, that wasn't necessarily off the table.
The trouble was, he had no way to confirm whether any of it was actually true. Mammon was the leader of Team Rocket, after all — who's to say he wasn't just lying? Could you really trust the word of someone from an evil organization? And as for the contract — did something like that even hold any weight against an evil organization? Paul remained skeptical.
"I want to see the Pokémon first. And I won't take part in anything illegal," Paul said, after a long moment's thought, finally looking up to meet Mammon's eyes squarely.
"That doesn't conflict with anything I said — after all, you heard it from me yourself: Team Rocket is a legitimate business operation these days, isn't it?"
"Exactly. Not only legitimate business — we've also been actively working to take down other evil organizations, too," Mammon agreed, smiling. Same principle as always: get people into the organization first, sort out the rest later. Sure, for the time being, he genuinely wouldn't have Paul or Platinum doing anything outright "evil" — but what if, say, while cleaning up Team Galactic or some poaching syndicate, the Sinnoh League happened to attack them in the process?
Honestly, Mammon found himself missing the old days back in Alola and Hoenn a little. Back then, the League used to come after them proactively, which had been the perfect opportunity to gradually "corrupt" Platinum and the others. We're literally in the middle of taking down an evil organization — why is the League attacking us? What exactly did we do wrong? Just because we're wearing Team Rocket colors, does that automatically make us "evil"? Do we deserve a bounty on our heads for that alone? Heh~ Look how convenient that used to be.
Unfortunately, as Mammon's own strength kept growing, the League had gotten considerably more hesitant about coming after him directly these days.
"Come with me, then, for now."
Mammon's group made their way to the villa they'd purchased — a sizable property, complete with a training field out back.
"Go ahead and take a look — which one do you want?"
The villa had a transfer machine on-site, conveniently enough.
"All the Ultra Beasts share the same Ability — Beast Boost — so just pick based on their typing and their individual strengths and weaknesses," Mammon reminded them.
Both Platinum and Paul studied the Ultra Beast data, thinking it over.
"I want Buzzwole," Paul said, after only a short pause, making his decision. Bug/Fighting typing would neatly patch two of his team's typing gaps — sure, he'd already trained up a Bisharp, but he wasn't especially satisfied with it either.
"No problem. Lady, what about you?" Mammon nodded.
"I'd like a Pheromosa, if that's all right?" After a moment's hesitation, Platinum also picked a Bug/Fighting type — no particular reason beyond the fact that it filled a gap in her own team's typing. And besides, Pheromosa looked genuinely gorgeous — struck a real chord with her. If she ever entered Pheromosa in a Pokémon Contest, it would absolutely kill it. Yeah — Platinum was actually quite fond of Contests.
Buzzwole and Pheromosa shared the exact same typing combination, but their strengths diverged sharply. Buzzwole carried overwhelming physical attack and excellent physical defense, with solid stamina to match — its weakness being low special defense, with average speed, neither fast nor slow. That was exactly why Paul had picked it; he genuinely preferred Pokémon strong on both offense and defense. Sure, Buzzwole's special defense ran low, but that was manageable as long as it avoided special-attack-heavy opponents.
Pheromosa, on the other hand, hit hard on both offensive stats and moved at blistering speed, but its physical and special defense bottomed out to an almost comical degree — genuinely paper-thin, no exaggeration. Each had its own tradeoffs.
"OK, then. I'll get them transferred over to you shortly," Mammon said, nodding with a smile.
He found himself looking forward to it, honestly — he had no idea what kind of sparks would fly when this world's version of Ash and Paul finally collided.
(End of Chapter)
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