Chapter 119: What Kind of Organization Is Team Rocket, Exactly?
"Put you in prison personally? I look forward to it."
Mammon smiled at Wallace's declaration with genuine warmth.
"Though I think that's probably a lifetime project, Sensei. No rush."
He waved pleasantly. "It's getting late. Until next time, both of you."
Armored Mewtwo's eyes blazed violet. The psychic platform lifted them smoothly and carried them away, shrinking to a point above the ocean and then gone.
"The audacity!"
Wallace stared at the empty sky with an expression that had moved past anger into something more philosophical.
"He said I couldn't do it. In my lifetime."
Steven said nothing. He was thinking about logistics.
Back at Caitlin's villa in Mauville.
"Something's been bothering me," Kagura said, looking at Mammon with genuine puzzlement.
"What?"
"We're an evil organization, right?" She crossed her arms. "So — we had Wallace and Steven. Why did we let them go?"
This was the thing she couldn't square. The first time had been Wallace alone, fine. But this time, they'd had both the current and former Hoenn Champions in their hands simultaneously.
Both Champion-tier. Both clearly dangerous to Team Rocket's continued operation in Hoenn.
Releasing them didn't feel like an evil organization move.
"What would you have done instead?" Mammon asked lightly. "Killed them?"
"...No." That wasn't even on the table.
"Kept them prisoner, then?"
Kagura considered it more seriously this time. "It would remove them as a threat."
"Temporarily." Mammon settled into the sofa, one leg over the other. "Think about what happens next. Wallace and Steven disappear. The Hoenn League doesn't know where they are. What do they do?"
Kagura thought about it.
"They assume the worst. They escalate."
"Exactly." He laced his hands behind his head. "The League has been building for over a hundred years. Started in Kanto, spread everywhere. Even Alola was petitioning to join — and the League was the one being selective about whether to admit them. Why? Because the League has actually maintained global stability for generations. That earns genuine loyalty, from everyone."
He wasn't wrong. Ask most kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, and the answer was some variation of I want to travel and challenge the League and become Champion. Nobody actively disliked the Pokémon League. It had earned its legitimacy through consistent effort over a very long time.
"The Champions specifically — Steven, Wallace, Cynthia, Leon, the others — they're not unified because they were told to be. They actually want the same things. A world where people and Pokémon genuinely coexist. They're all sincerely working toward that."
He paused.
"The League even abolished capital punishment. Specifically to model a more humane approach to human behavior."
Kagura hadn't known that.
"If Team Rocket killed two Champions — killed them — the League wouldn't just respond. It would mobilize everything. Every region, every Champion-tier asset, every resource it could access. We'd have the entire world's organized response pointed at us."
He said this without drama. Just analysis.
"I'm strong. But strong has limits. If it's genuinely one-on-one, there are maybe two people alive who worry me — that old monster in Johto being one of them. Against Leon or Drake in a straight fight, I like my odds. But if I'm the target — if they're all coming for me — that's a different conversation."
He thought about what the full-force response looked like. Every Champion simultaneously. Champion-tier assets from every region. Unknown tactical advantages — the Pokémon world had produced genuinely bizarre effective technologies at unexpected moments. The first-encounter problem alone was significant; someone would have something he'd never seen before.
"And beyond the practical — I just don't particularly want to kill people."
Kagura nodded slowly. All of it made sense.
"So imprisonment," he continued, "is pointless for a different reason. Two Champions disappear, the League searches for them. That search is active interference with everything we're trying to build here. The disruption isn't worth whatever advantage the prisoner situation provides."
"Better to leave them functional."
"Better to let them continue existing as the opposition we already know," Mammon agreed. "A predictable threat you can account for is better than triggering an unpredictable escalation."
"That makes sense." Kagura uncrossed her arms.
"One more thing." Mammon looked at her. "What kind of organization do you think Team Rocket is?"
She turned it over carefully.
Evil organization — officially, definitionally. But looking at what she'd actually observed over the past several days: factories acquired, businesses purchased, entertainment venues in development, logistics networks being established. It didn't look like what she'd imagined when she heard the word "evil."
It didn't look entirely legitimate either. The acquisition methods had some creative flexibility to them.
"The core purpose Team Rocket was founded on," Mammon said, "was financial. Use Pokémon as a means to generate large-scale revenue. That was Giovanni's original vision, and it's still the operating principle."
Kagura's expression was somewhere between bemused and skeptical.
"And now?"
She'd caught the tense shift. Was founded on. Was the original vision.
Mammon smiled, and didn't answer directly.
"For now — develop. Plant Team Rocket's flag in every region, and build from there."
Kagura turned away with a small eye-roll. He wasn't going to give her a straight answer on that one.
She didn't push.
Lilycove City. The League building.
The conference room had filled quickly after Wallace's summons.
The Four Elite had assembled. The head Jenny was present. Everyone was waiting with the particular alertness of people who'd been called urgently.
"We ran into Team Rocket's Mammon in Slateport," Wallace began, skipping the preamble. "Steven and I engaged them directly. Given what happened, I think we need a comprehensive operational plan."
The room's attention sharpened.
"The outcome of the battle?" Jenny asked.
"We lost." Wallace was direct. "Despite being two versus three — two Champions, two-on-three against them — we lost."
Phoebe and Sidney exchanged a look.
"You and Steven couldn't win?" Phoebe said carefully.
"We also didn't know," Steven added, "that their Champion-tier count has increased. The intel we had listed Mammon and Caitlin. There's a third — the Salamence user. We don't have anything on her yet, but I'd estimate Champion-tier. She may have Hoenn origins; she seemed to recognize me specifically in a way she shouldn't."
"Three Champion-tier executives." Jenny's color shifted. "In one team."
The Hoenn League's current full Champion-tier count: three. And one of those three was currently somewhere in a geological formation without reliable communication.
"That's not a criminal organization," Sidney said flatly. "That's an army."
"It's been pointed out to us," Wallace said.
"So what's the plan?" Jenny leaned forward.
"We keep searching." Wallace's tone had that particular quality it got when he'd decided something. "We don't stop, we don't slow down. I've already asked Steven to take the formal Championship — he has better standing to make cross-regional requests."
"Which is the second part," Steven said. "We ask for assistance from other regional Leagues. Kanto has history with Team Rocket — they'll have relevant intelligence. Sinnoh has resources. If we make the formal request through the right channels, we can get Champion-level support."
Sidney was already nodding. "Sinnoh's Champion has reasons to be interested — if Team Rocket's the same group that's been operating in Alola."
"My recommendation is Kanto and Sinnoh as first contacts." Steven paused. "And we should consider Unova. Their intelligence network is excellent."
The room absorbed this.
Wallace looked around the table. His expression had resolved into something that was genuine resolve rather than performed confidence.
"Team Rocket came to Hoenn and treated it as uncontested territory. They absorbed our existing criminal organizations in days. They're building legitimate business fronts while the League hasn't been able to pin them down."
He let that land.
"I'm not interested in accepting that as the situation. Are you?"
The Four looked at each other.
"No," Sidney said.
The others nodded.
"Then let's build a plan."
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