Chapter 85: You Absolute Menace — You're Harassing Lorelei?!
"I suppose it's not surprising you ended up in Team Rocket. Someone like you."
Lorelei composed herself quickly. That cold, cutting stare settled back into place.
She had no sympathy for any Rocket member. But she'd heard from Agatha and Goodshow about this one — a prodigy who'd thrown away a brilliant future, for reasons that were genuinely tragic.
Looking at him now, she revised her opinion. A lecherous fool. Not so tragic after all.
Caitlin pressed her lips together, glanced at a certain part of Lorelei's figure, then looked down at herself.
She could see her own feet with no obstruction whatsoever.
Caitlin fell into quiet contemplation. Was there anything to be done about that?
"Someone like me?" Mammon's smile had an edge.
"Don't talk as though you know me, Lorelei."
"I don't need to know you. I have no interest in knowing you." Lorelei's voice was ice.
"Brrr." Mammon made a sound of exaggerated cold.
"All you need to know is that you'll be spending the rest of your life in a cell at Indigo Plateau."
"Blizzard!"
She was done talking. Both Pokémon moved at once — Dewgong and Lapras opening their mouths simultaneously, ice-blue energy building at extraordinary speed before a howling frozen storm erupted outward and swallowed the sky.
"Looks dramatic."
Armored Mewtwo materialized in front of Mammon. Psychic force flooded outward in a deep violet wall.
BOOM.
The Blizzard crashed against the barrier and raged — and accomplished nothing. The shield didn't move. When Mewtwo's arm swept outward, the barrier and the storm both simply ceased to exist.
Lorelei's pupils contracted. Bruno's expression went serious.
"Could use a bit more force. That kind of attack isn't going to trouble my Mewtwo."
Mammon assessed it cheerfully.
"Impossible." Lorelei stared at the armored figure — its relaxed posture, the complete absence of strain. "How can it be this strong?"
She knew the output Dewgong and Lapras had just used. Not full power, but far from negligible. To have it dismissed that casually—
"Careful, Lorelei. Something's off about this one." Bruno said it low.
"I know."
He studied Armored Mewtwo, working through what he could infer. Psychic-type. Probably Steel. In that case—
"Hitmonlee, Machamp — Sucker Punch!"
Both Pokémon launched forward simultaneously.
"Ice Beam!"
Lorelei moved to cover them — if the Fighting-types closed distance, the armored Pokémon would have less room to work with. Dewgong and Lapras fired Ice Beams from both angles, rapid and intersecting.
"Pathetic."
Armored Mewtwo glanced at Lorelei's side of the field. The violet light in its eyes shifted. Its right arm rose. Psychic force detonated outward as a prismatic shockwave.
BOOM.
Psychic met both Ice Beams and shattered them without slowing. The shockwave kept moving.
"Protect!" Lorelei's expression changed.
Lapras snapped Protect into place. The shockwave hit and Lapras ground its teeth against the impact — the pressure was immense.
Hitmonlee had reached Mewtwo in the meantime. It leapt, right foot crackling black, and delivered a Sucker Punch at full extension.
Dark-type. Should hit a Psychic-type.
Mewtwo turned its head toward the incoming kick.
A deep violet barrier flickered into existence.
Thud.
Sucker Punch connected with the barrier. Ripples spread outward across its surface. It didn't break.
"What is that?" Bruno genuinely couldn't account for it. Not Protect — it didn't look like Protect.
Machamp arrived. All four arms raised simultaneously for a quadruple Sucker Punch.
Armored Mewtwo shifted its gaze.
Psychic force poured out. Machamp's four arms stopped moving mid-swing.
Hard psychic lock.
Machamp's veins stood out. Its face contorted. It poured everything into breaking the hold — and failed completely.
Bruno stared.
It looked at my Machamp once. Just looked at it. And it's completely immobilized.
"Mewtwo." Mammon's voice was satisfied.
And it should be. Dark Mewtwo had only recently awakened, and it was still operating in a suppression suit. And it was doing this.
Mewtwo's palm rotated slowly. Pure psychic force erupted from it outward in every direction.
Hitmonlee and Machamp went airborne and hit the ground hard. Neither got up.
Fighting-type was disadvantaged against Psychic-type to begin with — and both of Bruno's main Pokémon had now taken two full psychic detonations. There was nothing left in them.
"It seems like getting me into a cell is a bit beyond the two of you."
Mammon addressed Lorelei and Bruno with an expression of theatrical regret.
Lorelei's face was cold and furious. Bruno looked at his Pokémon and couldn't find the words.
Erika watched Mammon with a complicated expression she couldn't fully sort out.
Even Elite Four Lorelei and Bruno can't beat him.
Giovanni. You really have so much to answer for.
Meanwhile, Bruno's hand had already found the specialized communicator in his pocket and was pressing the distress signal with quiet urgency.
Agatha. Lance. Someone. Please.
This Rocket executive was too much. Lorelei with full focus still hadn't put him down, and Bruno suspected it was going to take Lance — or both of them together — to change that.
He also, unlike Lorelei, was not going to let his temper override his judgment.
Lorelei, however, was not finished.
She released another Poké Ball. A Jynx appeared in front of her.
"Oh?" Mammon raised an eyebrow. "The Ice Doll technique?"
This version of Lorelei was clearly Adventures continuity — sharp, ruthless, technically exceptional. In Adventures, Lorelei's signature secret technique was this: Jynx could create an ice sculpture modeled on a specific target, and Lorelei could freeze the corresponding part of that target's body by applying lipstick to the appropriate location on the sculpture.
Tactically elegant. Psychologically devastating. Extremely useful as an ambush.
The problem was what was standing next to Mammon and what was standing in front of him.
A psychic ability-user with a legendary Psychic-type Pokémon. If Jynx tried to establish the psychic resonance link needed between the sculpture and the target—
"That one won't work on me."
Mammon smiled.
"Blizzard! Cover!"
Lorelei committed to the attempt anyway — Dewgong and Lapras opened up immediately, buying Jynx time to work.
Mewtwo swept it all aside again without visible effort.
Bruno, reading the room, sent Hitmonlee and Machamp forward once more as a distraction. He'd already accepted this probably wasn't going to work. But trying cost nothing.
Mewtwo looked at them.
They were flung backwards for the third time.
Jynx, halfway through constructing the ice figure, discovered it simply could not complete the psychic link. Something was blocking it at every attempt. She looked up.
Those violet eyes in the helmet were looking directly at her.
Jynx sweated.
Right. Correct. She absolutely could not compete with whatever that was.
Lorelei read her Pokémon's expression and understood.
Silence settled over the wreckage.
"Looks like that didn't work either," Mammon said pleasantly. "Anything else?"
"You—"
"Evil, shameless Team Rocket!"
Lorelei's composure cracked. She glared at him.
Bruno, more practical, was pressing his communicator harder.
Come on. Someone. Now.
"Mewtwo."
Armored Mewtwo's arm rose. Lorelei was lifted off the ground by psychic force and drifted toward Mammon, her Pokémon pinned and helpless — Jynx made a frantic attempt to pull her back and was stopped by a single warning glance from Mewtwo.
Lorelei's face had gone pale.
"Don't do anything rash, Bruno. I'd hate for things to get unpleasant."
Mammon glanced back at the Fighting-type specialist without turning fully.
Bruno froze.
"Let Lorelei go," he said, voice low and measured. "And we'll let you leave."
If something happened to Lorelei, the fallout would be beyond serious.
Lorelei's jaw was tight, silver teeth clenched. Mammon's gaze was shameless and completely unbothered, and she had never felt more humiliated in her life. But she was not in a position to do anything about it right now.
"Relax. With a figure like that, I'm not about to do any damage to it."
Mammon sounded almost sincere about this.
"You wretch— I will never let this go—"
"Strong words from someone currently floating."
Mammon tilted his head, smile widening to something thoroughly villainous, and said something to Lorelei that made her expression go through three different colors in rapid succession.
Erika took two quiet steps backward and stared at the ground.
Caitlin's brow furrowed with mild disapproval.
Bruno stared between Mammon and Lorelei with the expression of a man watching something he can never unsee.
This guy is absolutely unhinged.
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