Chapter 80: This Is What the World Actually Is
The Celadon City Police Department had mobilized completely.
Additional units had been pulled in from neighboring cities, forming a full cordon around the southern district. Growlithe and Arcanine patrolled every perimeter point. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that at this moment, nothing was getting in or out of Celadon's south side — not even a Flygon.
"Erika still hasn't been located?"
Lorelei was wearing her standard black blazer and pencil skirt, the cut precise enough to be architectural. The figure it outlined was, objectively, striking. The face above it was another matter — cold, composed, and not at all welcoming.
"Apologies, ma'am. Gym staff say she left the Gym around midday and hasn't returned. No response to contact."
The Celadon officer's report was careful.
"Dereliction of duty," Lorelei said flatly.
The officer suppressed a sigh. She had a lot of goodwill toward Erika personally — young for a Gym Leader, but genuinely responsible. Apart from her legendary fondness for napping, she barely had a flaw. Today's disappearance didn't fit her at all. Something must have happened.
"It doesn't matter. Civilian evacuation of the southern district is complete?"
"Essentially complete, yes."
"Then we begin."
Lorelei pushed her glasses up. Behind the lenses, her eyes were the temperature of deep ice.
"Yes, ma'am!"
The officer stepped away to relay orders.
"Filth like this needs to be cleaned out entirely."
Lorelei's expression didn't change. A Lapras materialized in front of her, silent and enormous.
She had seen it once. With her own eyes — the genetic experiment records from inside a Rocket base, the data laid out on plain white paper in clean clinical language, every line of it describing something done to living Pokémon. Blood made legible.
In the past year, the bases she'd cleared had stopped containing that kind of material. Team Rocket appeared to have abandoned genetic experimentation.
As if that changes anything.
The crimes committed didn't disappear because the records did. Evil accrued a debt. That debt was paid in kind.
Once Team Rocket, forever Team Rocket. Nothing would ever change that.
Every last one of them. She would deal with every last one of them personally.
"Earthquake."
The word came out quiet and cold.
Lapras reared up and slammed both flippers down.
BOOM.
The ground split open. An Earthquake — real-typed, real-force, radiating outward in solid concussive waves like water displaced by something massive. The buildings in the immediate vicinity couldn't absorb it. Walls cracked. Facades buckled. The sound was continuous and layered and did not stop.
Lorelei watched. Her expression didn't move.
"She — I mean—"
"Keep your voice down. Do you want to—"
"If they're underground, the Earthquake goes straight through—"
Even at the officer's cordon, far back from the impact zone, the shockwaves reached them. The assembled Jennies stood in silence, shaken — literally and otherwise.
Everyone had heard that Lorelei was merciless when it came to Team Rocket. Everyone knew she'd made it her personal mission.
But an Earthquake as the opening move — while the targets were still underground, where Ground-type moves hit hardest—
No one said anything. The silence had a particular quality.
In the underground base, the shaking was catastrophic.
Dust poured from the ceiling. Support structures groaned.
"That's an Earthquake — it HAS to be that woman—"
Ariana caught herself against the wall before she went down, cursing Lorelei under her breath.
"She's trying to bury us?" Gladion was genuinely shocked. The Elite Four were League members. League members. And she was doing this?
"She's always been like this with us. We can't stay underground." Ariana's teeth were set hard.
BOOM.
The second wave hit harder than the first. Parts of the base were already collapsing inward. Lorelei had clearly had Lapras use Earthquake a second time.
"Caitlin — can Alakazam Teleport?"
"No. Blocked."
Caitlin had tried. Alakazam shook its head — the southern district was blanketed in communications jamming equipment and psychic interference devices. Specifically designed to prevent outside contact and Teleport escapes.
"We have to go up. Break through from the surface." Gladion's voice was flat and certain.
"Where's Lord Mammon?"
"Don't worry about Mammon. He has his own plan."
Caitlin brushed dust from her shoulder, efficient about it. Black fitted trousers, close-cut jacket — she'd dressed for mobility.
The base was failing fast. Another two Earthquakes and they'd genuinely be buried.
"All units — full breakthrough! Surface now!"
Ariana gave the order without hesitation.
Above ground.
"They're finally coming up."
Lorelei's face was expressionless. Across the broken terrain, several points in the rubble detonated outward as Rocket members poured up through the gaps.
Small fry. She paid them no attention.
A major base would have senior executives. That was what she'd come for.
She found them quickly — three figures standing out from the sea of black uniforms. Rocket grunts all wore standard black. Executives dressed themselves. Ariana in white. The girl in the fitted dark ensemble. The boy in black with the punk-edged styling.
Distinctly visible.
"Ariana."
Lorelei's mouth curved. No warmth in it at all.
Ariana felt it from across the distance — a cold that climbed up from her feet. She turned, and there was Lorelei, already looking directly at her, wearing a smile that had nothing living in it.
She's locked on to me.
Elsewhere.
"Quite a sight, isn't it. What do you think, Miss Erika?"
Mammon had found a relatively stable stretch of rubble and pulled up a chair — an actual chair, apparently salvaged from somewhere — and was watching the battle unfold below with something close to contentment. He was even smiling faintly.
"…"
Erika stood beside him in her floral-pattern kimono, light makeup, composed and beautiful and completely incongruous with every aspect of her surroundings.
She pressed her lips together. Her expression had gone slightly distant.
The scene in front of her — the scale of it, the noise, the collapse of structures she'd walked past her entire life — it hit harder than she'd expected. This was what war looked like when it arrived in the middle of a city.
"In any world, the complexity of human nature produces conflict. That's inevitable. It always has been." Mammon rose slowly from the chair and turned his head to the side.
The corner of his mouth pulled into a smile.
"Isn't that right. Friend."
Erika followed his gaze.
A boy with red eyes and a low-pulled cap was walking toward them.
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