Chapter 235: Mammon's Inner Artist Is Desperately Hungry
Goldenrod City underground base.
Chakra stared at his phone — which had just ended a call — with an expression that, if a word had to be found for it, would be something in the vicinity of haunted.
"Did Lord Mammon give new orders? Is he coming back to Johto?" Sham looked at Chakra with genuine curiosity.
She had a low opinion of Chakra's personality — arrogant, volatile, and approximately the height of a Pokémon that knew not to evolve — but she had to acknowledge that the current expression on his face was something she'd never seen there before. He looked like a man who had encountered information his brain was still trying to process.
"No, he's probably heading back soon. It's just—"
Chakra came back to himself. Right hand under chin, thinking.
"Sham. Get a team together and quietly take the Goldenrod Radio Tower. Make it clean. League can't find out."
"What?"
Sham blinked.
Take the Goldenrod Radio Tower?
The Goldenrod Radio Tower was one of the largest broadcast installations in the Kanto-Johto corridor. Taking it quietly while keeping the League from noticing was a significant logistical problem. And if the Kanto or Johto League did notice — which they would, because it was the Goldenrod Radio Tower — Team Rocket would be taking heat from two regional Leagues at once for a facility that broadcasted television and radio signals.
What was Mammon going to do with a broadcast tower?
"Don't 'what' me. It's Lord Mammon's order."
Chakra waved a hand, already done with this conversation.
"Understood."
Sham's expression went somewhere specific for a moment before settling back into neutral.
That's it. That's the moment.
The second Mammon was back in Johto, she was going to identify herself, declare her loyalties, and make sure she never had to take directions from this insufferable diminutive man again. She had capability that Team Rocket could genuinely use. She had something to offer — a specific very rare Pokémon she'd been managing since her Galaxy Team days, one whose abilities were beyond her current capacity to control and which would make an excellent demonstration of her value to someone who could actually handle it.
She was done hiding.
Galaxy Team had no future. Team Rocket did. The math was obvious.
Soon.
One day later. Unova. The castle. The pool terrace.
"That about wraps it up here."
Mammon was reclined on a poolside chair, watching Elesa work her way through laps. He'd been browsing flight options back to Kanto on his phone.
Unova operations: essentially complete. The League's formal recognition of Team Rocket's commercial presence in the region had come through — grudgingly and after what sounded, based on his contacts' reports, like a very heated late-night session in their parliamentary conference room. The five billion had been transferred with the smoothness that characterized transactions conducted under duress. The official promotion question remained open, Alder still consulting with Goodshow.
The debate over the promotion had apparently been quite something. Some legislators had drawn a line in the floor; others had argued that a line in the floor was better than several alternative options currently on the table. Others had served primarily as human barriers between the first two groups.
Mammon didn't find this particularly concerning. The precedent was Hoenn. Hoenn had normalized the first step; the second step was easier to justify on similar grounds.
"Will you be returning to Kanto soon, Mammon?" Anthea asked.
She was sitting at his side, hands doing something gentle that did not need to be described in detail, voice soft.
"Few more days and then yes." He drew her in absently, her weight settling against him, and looked at the ceiling for a moment. "Do you want to come?"
Anthea's cheeks took on color. In the pink-tinged light, with her hair the way it was, she was—
"If you want us," she said, which was a more honest answer than most.
Kanto. The center of the Pokémon League structure. For someone from Unova, it had a certain gravity.
And beyond any of that: she and Concordia had given themselves to this arrangement with clear eyes. They had talked about it after, privately. What they were to Mammon was a question that didn't have a clean category, but what he was to them was simpler. He'd moved without hesitation when she'd asked. He didn't look at them like objects or problems. He'd invited them, genuinely.
"Come along then," Mammon said, without deliberating. "Unova will still be here."
Anthea went quietly pleased in the way that doesn't make a lot of noise.
By the pool's edge, Elesa had stopped swimming and was sitting on the steps, patting her face dry with a towel. She had heard this exchange. She turned it over for a moment.
She wasn't going to examine what she was feeling about going back to Nimbasa versus staying wherever Mammon was. She wasn't going to do that today.
She stood, picked up her towel, and walked toward the indoor changing area.
"Mammon."
N came out onto the terrace, glanced at Anthea still settled against Mammon, and felt something that took him a moment to identify.
He'd noticed, over the past several days, that the dynamic between Mammon and Anthea-Concordia was — particular. He hadn't been sure what to do with it. Now, seeing it directly, he could be more certain.
He did want to talk to them about it. Not to object — he was clear-eyed enough to recognize that Anthea and Concordia were adults who had made their own choices, and that he had no standing to dictate those choices. But he cared about them, and he wanted to understand.
He filed it as a conversation for later.
"Our people have located the Abundance Shrine."
"That's good news." Mammon's eyes sharpened a little.
The Abundance Shrine — dedicated to Landorus, the "Abundance Pokémon" and "Guardian of the Fields." The legendary with the cleanest reputation of the Forces of Nature: where Thundurus and Tornadus fought each other and caused storms, Landorus descended to mediate, and in the wake of their conflict the land flourished. Where it visited, crops grew well.
The pattern was strikingly similar to Hoenn's weather trio — two adversaries, one mediator. Some structures in legendary ecology seemed to repeat.
Landorus's Therian Forme was the Tiger. Thundurus's was the Dragon. Tornadus's was the Bird. Three of the four classic Chinese celestial forms — the fourth, the Tortoise, corresponding to Enamorus, the Force of Nature Mammon hadn't been able to locate yet.
He'd already brought in Tornadus and Thundurus. Leaving Landorus unaddressed would be incomplete. And Landorus in Therian Forme was genuinely formidable — stronger, by most measures, than either of the two he already had.
"Any leads on Enamorus?"
"Nothing confirmed." N shook his head. "Its recorded presence in any historical source is minimal."
"Expected." Mammon nodded. The nature of Enamorus's mythology — the newest addition to the group, the one whose stories were sparsest — made it the hardest to trace. "The shrine gives us what we need for now."
He sat up, stretched.
"One more thing — the shrine's on Milos Island, apparently. Three-cloud island."
The naming was worth noting. Milos — three clouds — corresponded to Tornadus, Thundurus, Landorus. Enamorus was absent from the island's mythology, which was consistent with it being the least-documented of the four.
There was one entertaining theological question buried in the lore — whether Enamorus, being the female counterpart corresponding to Landorus's archetype, shared a shrine site with it, which would raise follow-up questions about the nature of their living arrangement. Mammon declined to pursue this line of thinking to its conclusion.
He changed and went to find the others.
Milos Island was small, quiet, and green in the particular way of places that don't receive much traffic. The main island had a population that could be described as intimate. Two smaller islands adjacent to it corresponded to Tornadus and Thundurus's respective shrine sites.
The path to the main shrine wound through forest that had been tended for a long time — not wild, but not cultivated either. Something in between.
"Nice place," Mammon said.
He was in no particular hurry. The three of them — himself, Caitlin, Elesa — walked at a pace that was comfortable rather than purposeful.
Then, along a branching path from the side, three people emerged.
Steven. Wallace. Alder.
Mammon stopped.
Of all the—
He looked at them with genuine, unhurried interest. Took in the details.
Then his gaze settled on Wallace and Alder specifically, and the corner of his mouth began to rise.
"Caitlin." He spoke without looking at her. "You still have spare outfits in your bag?"
Caitlin glanced at Alder and Wallace, understood immediately, and confirmed.
"Several."
"Wonderful. My content account has been neglected for too long."
Content account?
Elesa blinked.
What did that mean?
(End of Chapter)
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