Chapter 120: Fight Team Rocket? I'm Not Going.
"Requesting assistance from other regions..." Jenny's expression had gone from startled to conflicted.
The League was a unified body, but the relationships between regional branches were more complicated than they appeared from the outside. Think of the global Pokémon League as a single enormous corporation — each regional branch was a department within it. Nominally unified, practically competitive.
And there was the additional delicate matter that the League's current global president was Kanto's own Charles Goodshow. The most important figure the League had produced in its century of existence, by most assessments — Brock had said as much, and most people agreed.
But Goodshow was old. The question of who succeeded him was very much open. And every regional branch knew that question was coming, which meant every branch was quietly positioning.
Asking Kanto or Sinnoh for help with Team Rocket was also, read uncharitably, admitting that Hoenn couldn't handle a criminal organization on its own. Before a succession question. With multiple regions watching.
Sidney and the other Elite Four understood this without it being said. Sidney started to speak, looked at Wallace and Steven, and stopped.
"The most important thing," Wallace said, "is getting Team Rocket out of Hoenn. Not what it looks like to do it."
He meant this. Whatever personal frustration was fueling him — and there was some — the operational priority was real.
"Steven."
"I agree," Steven said. "The optics matter less than the outcome. If we need help, we ask for it."
The Four exchanged glances. Then nodded.
"Which regions?" Jenny asked.
"Kanto first," Steven said. "They have the most institutional knowledge about Team Rocket — been dealing with them for nearly ten years. Sinnoh second. Cynthia has personal reasons to be interested in this situation."
A pause.
"The report says Caitlin is Sinnohan," Jenny confirmed. "And Cynthia's relationship with her is documented."
"Exactly." Steven tapped the table once. "She'll want to know. And she'll come."
"Kalos?"
"Worth asking. Calem may be available."
"Alola's League application just cleared — they're swamped with setup. Unova..." Jenny hesitated. "Alder's situation makes him difficult to deploy. The partner loss was severe and his resistance to battle since then has been—" She chose her words. "Significant."
The room absorbed this quietly.
"Galar, then." Wallace looked up. "Leon's strength is well-established."
"Agreed."
"Paldea?"
Jenny thought about it. "Chairman Geeta is stretched thin administratively. But there's the recent Champion — Nemona. She's currently a student at the academy, but her credentials are genuine. I can reach out."
"Do it." Wallace made the decision cleanly. "Whatever we can get."
He stood, smoothed his cape, and looked around the table.
"Start the contact process. Goodshow's office can handle the formal requests — frame it as a cross-regional cooperative action against an organization with documented multi-region presence. That's accurate and it plays better."
Jenny nodded, already writing.
"I'll start with the formal documentation tonight."
Indigo Plateau.
"This is a headache."
Goodshow set down the request from Hoenn and rubbed his eyes.
Team Rocket had started in Kanto. They'd moved to Alola and caused significant disruption. Now Hoenn was formally requesting assistance because they couldn't manage the situation with their own resources.
He had approximately one feeling about this.
Team Rocket continues to be Kanto's gift to the world.
"Have Lorelei come in."
He thought through the available roster. Drake was moving independently — unpredictable location. Agatha's age made a field deployment impractical. The Johto side had seen unusual Rocket activity recently, and he'd just sent Bruno to help stabilize things. Which left Lorelei.
She came in, read the request, and pushed her glasses up.
"Fight Mammon?"
"That's the situation. Three confirmed Champion-tier executives. Hoenn's two Champions weren't sufficient."
Lorelei was quiet for a moment.
"I'm not going."
Goodshow blinked. "...I'm sorry?"
"I'm not going."
He stared at her. Lorelei was the most aggressive of the Elite Four when it came to Team Rocket. She'd been pursuing this for years. She had proposed marriage to Mammon in the Celadon incident specifically to try to extract him from the organization.
"May I ask why?"
Lorelei's expression was the particular blankness of someone preserving professional composure at significant personal cost.
"My chastity is at risk."
"...Your—"
"Mammon is too dangerous." Her voice was extremely even. "And the Celadon incident established that his operational methods include..." She paused precisely. "Non-standard leverage."
Goodshow opened his mouth. Closed it.
He thought back to the Celadon debrief. He thought about what the report had contained about the hours after the initial confrontation. He decided not to ask follow-up questions.
"...I see."
"If you need a formal recommendation — Sinnoh's Cynthia is motivated and capable. Leon in Galar has the power ceiling. Those are the appropriate contacts."
Lorelei's expression hadn't changed once.
"I'll note your concerns in the file," Goodshow said carefully.
"Thank you, President."
She left.
Goodshow sat with the request for a long moment.
A decade of fighting Team Rocket, he thought, and Lorelei — Lorelei — just declined a field assignment.
He picked up the phone.
Sinnoh. Lily of the Valley Island.
Cynthia set the phone down and looked out the window for a long moment.
The surface of the water was perfectly still. The afternoon light lay across it like hammered copper.
"Caitlin."
She said the name quietly, to no one.
She had gone to Alola for this. She had argued with Mammon on that cliff overlooking the sea, and he had said things that were unfair and accurate simultaneously, and she had come away from it without Caitlin. Without anything she'd set out to achieve.
She had been telling herself since then that there would be another moment. That Caitlin would find her way back to something better. That the person she'd watched grow up — the girl who had been brilliant and isolated and afraid of her own power until she'd found her way toward confidence — was not gone.
Hoenn was another moment.
"I'm coming." She picked up her bag. "And this time I'm not leaving without her."
Wyndon, Galar. Rose Tower.
"Team Rocket." Chairman Rose set down his coffee and let the information settle pleasantly.
"Should I contact Champion Leon, sir?" Oleana asked. Her expression was, as always, entirely professional.
"Yes." Rose's smile was the warm, assured kind that preceded significant decisions. "This is an excellent opportunity."
"Sir — if Team Rocket is strong enough to force Hoenn to request outside assistance, and Hoenn has two of their own Champions—" Oleana's tone was precise. "If Leon were to lose?"
She wasn't being pessimistic. She was being accurate. Hoenn had Wallace and Steven. They'd both failed. That was the documented baseline.
"I trust Leon completely." Rose set the cup down. "And if he did face setbacks — that would only demonstrate that the threat is genuine. That the world needs a more decisive force to judge the darkness that exists in it." His expression deepened into something more private. "Leon needs that force. He's ready for it, whether he knows it yet or not."
He was, of course, thinking about the plan. The one that would give Leon exactly what Leon needed to be everything Leon was capable of being.
Rose took out his phone and dialed.
The call connected and immediately:
"Hello?? Chairman Rose? What's up?"
The voice was warm, direct, slightly breathless — as if Leon had been in motion.
"Leon. I have something I'd like you to take care of. Hoenn needs assistance with a situation involving Team Rocket—"
Rose paused. The line had gone quiet.
He checked the signal.
Full bars. Connection intact.
He looked at Oleana.
"It seems," he said, "that Champion Leon may have gone through a tunnel."
Oleana's expression remained exactly as it had been.
"That would be consistent with his navigation history, sir."
Rose closed his eyes briefly.
Their undefeated Galar Champion. Young, genuinely brilliant, extraordinary power, warm and caring with his juniors, principled, committed—
The one thing.
The single irresolvable issue.
He was a directional disaster.
Paldea. League building.
"An evil organization? Team Rocket?" Geeta considered it, one hand under her chin. Her schedule was full. Her schedule was always full.
She picked up her phone.
"Hello?? Chairman Geeta, something up?"
The voice on the other end had the immediate energy of someone who had been ready for whatever the call was before the call came.
"It's like this, Nemona — there's something I need your help with. Over in Hoenn—"
Geeta explained the situation.
In the Paldea region, no one escaped extra duties. Not the Chairman. Not the Elite Four. Not the nominal Champion, even if she was still technically enrolled.
Somewhere on campus, Nemona ended the call, pumped her fist once, and was already thinking about which team to bring.
She had been waiting for something like this.
☆☆☆
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