Chapter 206: How Does Mammon Keep Getting Legendaries
"MAMMON!!"
Ghetsis was beyond furious.
Watching the three Genesect that had been under his control a moment ago swivel their cannons to point directly at him was more than his composure could handle.
"MAMMON!!!!!!"
Ghetsis's roar was pure, unfiltered breakdown. His mental state had completely shattered.
Mammon. Mammon. It was always Mammon.
If Team Rocket had never come to Unova, none of this would have happened. Everything had been going perfectly.
Steven, Cynthia, and the others watched Ghetsis's meltdown with expressions that ranged from uncomfortable to speechless. None of them could think of anything to say.
"Oh?"
Mammon's eyes narrowed slightly, and his smile grew warmer.
Dark Mewtwo's eyes flickered with violet light. Ghetsis, still suspended in the psychic grip, suddenly found his airway constricting — face flushing dark red, the words dying in his throat.
Then Dark Mewtwo swept its arm downward.
Ghetsis plummeted.
The sudden drop sent a spike of genuine terror through him — at that speed, from that height—
"Father!!"
N's expression broke. He sent Zoroark sprinting before the thought had finished forming.
Zoroark caught Ghetsis at the last possible moment. Without it, a fall like that would have meant death, or something close enough to make no difference.
Even with the save, Ghetsis was gasping, breath ragged, unable to fully process that he was still alive.
"You really do care about him, don't you." Mammon observed N with genuine interest.
"Mammon." N stood beside Ghetsis, steadying him, and looked up. "What were you just trying to do?"
"Give our esteemed Sage Ghetsis a small lesson in humility." Mammon's tone was utterly casual. Then he paused, and the smile turned thoughtful as he looked at N.
"And even if I did want to kill him — what exactly would you do about it, N?"
"I won't let you."
N's voice didn't waver. Whatever else was complicated, this wasn't. The man who had raised him — who had shaped everything he understood about the world — had no blood connection to him. But that didn't change what he was.
"Oh?" Mammon looked at him with an expression that wasn't quite a smile.
"What do we do now?"
Alder glanced between the two criminal organization leaders currently having a conversation in the middle of the road, and lowered his voice uncertainly toward the others.
"Wait." Giovanni stepped over and kept his voice equally quiet. "Watch."
"Agreed," Steven murmured. "Inserting ourselves between these two right now seems unwise."
"N." Mammon hadn't bothered acknowledging the League's murmuring. He glanced at Zekrom — the black dragon had taken some light damage from its exchange with Leon, visible in the faint scoring along its scales. The battle had clearly been intense, and Zekrom hadn't managed to bring down the Mega Charizard X or the Dragonite.
"You really are pitiable. You know that?"
"If you're trying to humiliate me," N said flatly, "there's no need."
He'd misread it — assumed Mammon was mocking his origins or his current situation.
"That's not what I meant." Mammon's voice stayed level. "Your beloved Sage Ghetsis has never once thought of you as his child. To him, you're a tool. Something that disgusts him. A useful monster."
N's brow tightened. Ghetsis's expression went very dark.
"Sowing discord now, Mammon?" Ghetsis's voice was contemptuous. "How shameless."
"You don't need to rush to deny it. You know better than anyone whether it's true."
Mammon glanced at Ghetsis sidelong, then turned back to N.
"I mentioned this before — your ideals were deliberately cultivated. They were always going to fail. Do you know why?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
"Because Ghetsis specifically sought out a child who could sense Pokémon emotions, and then surrounded you — from the very beginning — with Pokémon that had been hurt, discarded, and broken by humans. He engineered your entire understanding of the world. He built the environment that built you."
N's pupils contracted slightly. Across the road, Alder and the others went very still.
"That's—"
"That's monstrous."
"To deliberately construct that kind of upbringing — to twist a child's entire worldview through controlled exposure—"
Even people with as much composure as Steven and Cynthia felt something cold move through them at the image. A person's values take years to form, and nothing shapes that formation more than the environment they grow up in. And N wasn't an ordinary child — he was someone who could feel what Pokémon felt, naturally, without effort. Put him in a room full of Pokémon carrying grief and rage and despair and hatred toward humans, and what was he going to absorb?
Nothing but the wounds.
"What a contemptible man," Caitlin said, with the quiet precision of someone choosing their words specifically because mild language makes the point sharper.
"Father…"
N looked at the man he'd spent his life trusting, confusion pulling at everything he thought he understood.
"Don't believe a word of this! N — are you really going to trust an enemy over me? I raised you. You carry my name. Everything you are, I made."
Ghetsis's fury had a note of something desperate underneath it. Right now, N was the only thing standing between him and the consequences of this day.
"Those Pokémon — I took them in because they'd been hurt by humans. You know that. You've always known that."
"..."
N said nothing. He wasn't refuting it, because he had known that. He'd believed that. But he couldn't pretend that Mammon's words hadn't landed somewhere.
"The world isn't perfect — you're right about that," Mammon continued, unhurried, watching Ghetsis's performance with the relaxed attention of someone enjoying dinner theater. "But what you saw growing up was never the whole picture. What Ghetsis showed you was a curated fragment of reality — carefully selected, deliberately arranged."
"And it worked exactly as intended. He used that fragment to build convictions in you that he was incapable of building in himself. He needed a Hero of Ideals. He couldn't be one. So he manufactured one."
Mammon let that sit for a moment.
"Ghetsis is an arrogant man who falls apart under pressure. Self-important, and not nearly as intelligent as he believes. And he wasn't even subtle about this — he didn't hide it from your sisters. Or maybe he was so obvious that they saw through him without needing to try. Or perhaps they simply overheard something they weren't supposed to."
Ghetsis's eyes went very cold at that.
Anthea. Concordia. The two girls Ghetsis had also taken in as children — the ones who, without blood relation, had become something like older sisters to N. Who genuinely cared about him. And who had been the ones to tell the story of N's past to those who came looking.
"You probably won't take my word for it," Mammon said. "But ask your sisters. They won't lie to you."
N's legs went unsteady beneath him. He caught himself before he fell, but only just.
His mind was very loud and very empty at the same time. He wasn't foolish. His intelligence had never been the problem — it was the foundation the intelligence was built on that was now cracking.
If Mammon was telling the truth — if all of it was true — then what had everything he'd done been for?
"Lies!! All of it!" Ghetsis's voice cracked with fury. "Mammon, you think this pathetic manipulation will come between us?!"
He couldn't afford to admit it. Not here. Not now.
"You don't need to raise your voice. If you want the truth, it's simple enough to get — have Mewtwo use Hypnosis and you'll say exactly what's in your head."
Mammon raised his eyes toward Ghetsis with an expression of helpful neutrality.
Ghetsis's face drained.
"And before you worry — as a Psychic-type legendary, Mewtwo's technique is exceptionally refined. No neural damage whatsoever."
"Don't be absurd."
Ghetsis would sooner throw himself off a cliff. Everyone knew Hypnosis on a human carried serious risk of brain damage. He was supposed to trust Mammon's word on this?
"N." Ghetsis dropped his voice, urgent. "We're leaving. This man is too dangerous."
He wanted out. Now. The League was one threat; Mammon was another category of problem entirely. Standing here surrounded by both was the definition of untenable.
And the gall of Alder's group — they'd come at Ghetsis with everything they had, but now that Mammon was standing here in plain sight, not one of them had moved an inch toward him. Not a single aggressive gesture.
The differential treatment was absolutely infuriating.
"Understood."
N's voice was quiet. His mind was still in turmoil — he didn't know if Mammon was telling the truth. He didn't know if Ghetsis had truly engineered his entire childhood. He didn't know if his ideals were real or constructed.
But this wasn't the moment to resolve any of that. Whatever else was true, Ghetsis had raised him. Retreat first.
"Zekrom."
At N's call, Zekrom sounded a deep cry and moved to carry them clear.
And then the blue light wrapped around Ghetsis again.
His body left his control. He rose into the air.
"N!! Help me!!"
"Mammon." N looked at him directly.
Mammon looked back, perfectly pleasant. "You can go. Sage Ghetsis, on the other hand — he stays."
He was waiting for a very entertaining development, and that development required Ghetsis to end up in League custody.
N's jaw tightened.
Under Dark Mewtwo's guidance, Ghetsis began drifting steadily toward Alder's group.
"…??"
Alder blinked. He'd been enjoying the show.
"Zekrom!!"
N couldn't do it. He couldn't watch his father be taken.
Zekrom launched into the air, angling for Ghetsis—
Hmmmmmm~
A sound rang out — melodious, clear, light as wind. A draconic call with a completely different quality to Zekrom's thunder-deep roar.
A white dragon, twin tails streaming behind it, spread its wings against the sky and loosed a pulse of pure Dragon energy directly at Zekrom.
Zekrom's eyes sharpened. It pulled back, letting the Dragon Pulse pass, and fixed its gaze on the white dragon across from it.
"RESHIRAM!!"
N's expression changed completely.
He stared at the white dragon now circling overhead.
"…So you're the one who awakened Reshiram."
He looked at Mammon. Surprised? Not entirely. This was Mammon, after all. Given his ability, calling forth the Dragon of Truth wasn't beyond expectation.
"Mammon got Reshiram."
On the League side, Wallace watched the beautiful white dragon with an expression of profound citrus-induced suffering.
No, seriously. Why did Mammon keep acquiring legendaries?
"He got stronger again." Leon pressed a hand to his forehead. There was no other way to put it. Mammon with Reshiram was measurably, concretely more dangerous.
Hmmmm~!!
And Reshiram, for its part, was absolutely vibrating with excitement at the sight of Zekrom across from it.
The black dragon. Finally. Let me show you what Truth looks like — yo!!
(End of Chapter)
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