Chapter 102: Wallace: "Fight Team Rocket? Easy Win, Sweetheart"
Kagura was sincerely of the opinion that this Team Rocket person was a little too extreme.
Blowing up buildings. Leveling people's homes. Was this really a normal line of thinking for someone living in a peaceful era?
Mammon, for his part, felt Kagura was being slightly conservative. With grievances that deep, how had she not jumped at the offer?
"You know about our Clan's prophecy." Kagura set aside the immediate question. She hadn't agreed outright, but Mammon's sincerity — if you could call it that — had made an impression.
Shelly's debt was one she would collect. That was not negotiable.
But her three enemies were not simple targets. Especially the Johto Pokémon Association, with the Kanto League standing behind it.
"The meteorite crisis." Mammon nodded. "Of course."
Long, long ago, meteor showers had streaked across the night sky while Primal Groudon and Primal Kyogre tore the world apart between them, and the people of the time had nothing to hold onto. Then Rayquaza had descended and ended it.
A thousand years later, a meteorite struck what is now Fallarbor Town. Groudon and Kyogre awakened and clashed again, and despair settled over the world once more. The Lorekeeper of that era had prayed to the Star Piece, calling for Rayquaza's return — the prayer had reached it, and the Star Piece's power had triggered Rayquaza's Mega Evolution. Groudon and Kyogre were defeated and driven back into slumber.
The Meteor Falls Clan, twice-saved by Rayquaza, had built the Sky Pillar as a place of offering. And on the Sky Pillar's walls, they had left a prophecy:
One thousand years hence, a new meteorite will fall. Before it strikes the continent, Rayquaza must be summoned again to destroy it.
"You really do know everything." Kagura's eyes had narrowed. She genuinely couldn't understand how Mammon — who had no connection to the Clan — knew any of this.
"That part isn't important. What matters is that you need help, Kagura." Mammon waved the question away pleasantly. "For the prophecy, and for your sister."
"I can handle it alone."
She said it flatly. She didn't like his tone.
"Of course. But wouldn't having our support make everything considerably easier?"
The smile didn't waver.
"Replacing your sister's debt with allies — that's what you need. People who won't flinch from what the mission asks. We can be that."
Mammon picked up the gold badge from the table and placed it, slowly and deliberately, into Kagura's hand.
This time she didn't put it down.
"There's no downside to this arrangement for you. Team Rocket's resources — you can draw on them freely."
"Easy to say. Next thing you know, I'm on the League's wanted list."
Kagura looked at the badge in her palm for a long moment.
Then she laughed, quiet and a little resigned.
"And?"
Mammon met her eyes. "Does that actually cost us anything?"
A beat. Then both of them laughed — the same note of shared, uncomplicated recklessness.
Kagura hadn't refused.
Mammon was right. If she was going to make Shelly's killers answer for what they'd done, she needed backing from a force that didn't care what the Pokémon League thought. Team Rocket, with its comprehensive indifference to institutional authority, fit that description perfectly.
They needed her strength. She needed their reach. That was a clean trade.
Courtney watched the two of them arrive at their understanding, her expression neutral, her thoughts unreadable.
Her worldview had, she was gradually realizing, been operating on a rather small scale.
Team Magma just wanted to expand the landmass. That had felt like a significant ambition until about twenty minutes ago.
These two were discussing the Berlitz family, Devon Corporation, the Pokémon Association, and a prophecy about a meteorite threatening to destroy the continent.
Are we even in the same conversation? Courtney thought. You're going to do what to whom?
She wasn't sure they could actually pull it off. But she was becoming uncomfortably certain that Team Magma and Team Aqua were about to have a very bad time.
Team Magma's leader Maxie had that same feeling, staring at his phone in Mauville City.
An hour had passed without a single message from Courtney.
He didn't know what had happened, but the most logical conclusion was that she'd been captured.
"Team Rocket." He pushed his glasses up. "Why is Team Rocket in Hoenn?"
He couldn't make sense of it, but the unease in his gut was growing.
Even from across the sea, Maxie knew what Team Rocket was. The most powerful criminal organization in the Kanto underground — an operation that had grown and consolidated itself right under the Kanto League's nose. An organization with that kind of track record didn't cross an ocean to make a social call.
And now they'd walked directly into one of his bases.
"Do they think Team Magma has no one worth taking seriously?"
The cold light in his eyes sharpened. Maxie prided himself on his composure, but there were limits. His organization — Hoenn's established power in the shadows — had been invaded by out-of-region newcomers on their first day here. One of his best admins was in their hands.
This was a direct slap across the face, and they both knew it.
Fine. Fine.
But Maxie was not the type to react with raw force. That was Archie's way — all muscle and impulse, brain the size of a walnut. Maxie was a strategist.
"Direct confrontation is not the right play." He settled that quickly. Team Rocket was the river dragon coming to town. He didn't know their numbers, but Courtney's capture alone suggested they'd brought capable people.
He wasn't going to throw himself at them head-on and risk a loss he couldn't afford.
Set the tiger on the wolf.
Archie was a fool, but a useful fool. Sending Team Aqua to clash with Team Rocket was an elegant solution — whichever side came out worse, Maxie could work with the result.
The obstacle was that he needed to actually provoke the confrontation. Team Rocket would certainly come for Team Aqua eventually, but waiting felt passive.
If only he knew where Archie's main base was. He could hand that location directly to Team Rocket and let them do the work for him.
He didn't have it. But he had something else.
Maxie's expression settled into something cold and satisfied. He opened his desk drawer, produced a secondary phone, and dialed.
"Lavaridge Police, how can I help you?" Officer Jenny's crisp voice came through the line.
"Officer, I need to report a crime." Maxie coughed and adopted a suitably distressed register. "I was hiking on Mt. Chimney with a friend when we were attacked by a group calling themselves Team Rocket — they stole our Pokémon and took my friend—"
"What?!"
"Yes — please, my friend is a young woman, I'm very worried about what they might—"
"Sir, calm down. Tell me exactly where this happened."
Maxie, stone-faced, told her. He gave the coordinates of his own captured base — the one Team Rocket had already taken. If I can't have it back, they don't get to keep it quietly either.
He hung up.
"Let the Hoenn League deal with them first." A thin smile. "They're new here. No roots, no network, no standing. Under the League's attention, Team Rocket will find every step forward an uphill battle."
This was strategic thinking. Brute force was Archie's department. Maxie operated with his head.
The information traveled up the chain with efficient speed.
It arrived, eventually, at the Champion's office in Lilycove City.
"Hm? Team Rocket?"
The current Hoenn Champion set down his report, looking faintly puzzled.
Refined features, pale and elegant, a white cape draped over a slender frame. Wallace. Former Sootopolis Gym Leader, master-class Contest Coordinator, Champion by the personal request of a dear friend who had subsequently gone off to dig holes in the ground and left him to manage things alone.
Wallace had privately sent that friend a great many choice thoughts over the past year.
"Team Rocket — that's the Kanto organization, isn't it?" He tapped his chin. "I don't follow them closely."
In his assessment, criminal organizations of that type were fundamentally a minor nuisance — the same category as Team Magma and Team Aqua. He'd heard their ideology described once and had needed to suppress genuine laughter. Expanding the landmass. Expanding the ocean. As reasons for villainy went, these were impressively absurd.
He'd always privately assumed those two organizations existed primarily for comedic value.
"Yes — Team Rocket is a significantly powerful and dangerous organization. According to our intelligence, they recently conducted operations in the Alola region as well."
Officer Jenny's tone was grave.
"Champion Wallace, their arrival in Hoenn is concerning. This doesn't look like a casual visit."
"Don't worry, Jenny." Wallace looked up with a serene smile. His composure was total, his confidence completely undisturbed.
"They're a criminal organization. A reasonably capable one, perhaps — but still just a criminal organization. They don't have the ceiling for anything truly serious."
He was, in fact, fairly confident that Team Rocket had simply been squeezed out of Kanto and was looking for somewhere new to operate. That would explain Alola. That would explain Hoenn.
"That said—" His expression shifted to something a shade more dramatic. He placed a hand firmly on the desk.
"They dared to steal Pokémon from Hoenn's citizens and abduct people in our region. This is completely unacceptable."
Officer Jenny watched her Champion perform.
"This is a blatant disregard for the Hoenn League's authority. Against criminals of this stripe, we must respond with overwhelming force!"
"So your plan, Champion, would be—?"
"I'll go myself." Wallace's smile was entirely composed. "Just a criminal organization. Allow me to deliver Team Rocket their elegant curtain call."
"That — you don't need to go personally—" Jenny blinked.
"The optimal response to a criminal organization is a decisive strike before they can scatter and regroup." Wallace's tone was authoritative.
Besides — this was a perfectly reasonable excuse to leave Lilycove City. And from the base area, the trip to Slateport and its Contest Spectacular would be quite convenient.
As for Team Rocket?
Easy win.
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