Chapter 236: Wallace: Sorry, Steven, I've Already Taken the Shape of Alder
"My head is killing me."
Alder walked with the bearing of a man who had spent the previous night in a room full of people screaming at each other over a table and was still processing it.
The parliamentary session had been exactly as bad as he'd anticipated and then somewhat worse. Start to finish: arguments. He'd sat at the head of the table with his face perfectly neutral and felt the headache building layer by layer until it was structural.
He was increasingly certain he didn't want this job anymore. The specific desire to set down the Champion title and walk away had been occurring to him more frequently.
But there was no one to hand it to. Unova needed someone in the seat, and Alder wasn't the kind of person who left a gap and hoped it sorted itself out. So he walked, and tried not to think about the session, and failed.
"Stop thinking about it, Alder," Wallace said, beside him on the forest path. "Today is for relaxing. That was the whole point."
Wallace and Steven had specifically come here for a quiet day in scenery that wasn't ruined. They'd extended the invitation mostly because Alder had looked like he needed somewhere to put himself that wasn't a conference room.
He'd been listening to Alder's account of the meeting for the better part of an hour and had developed genuine sympathy. Steven of Hoenn had the considerable advantage of not having to run a parliament.
"The Team Rocket situation isn't something one or two regions can solve," Wallace continued, because it was true and saying it out loud sometimes helped. "That naturally villainous Mammon — defeating him with any single region's resources is simply not realistic."
He'd made his peace with this assessment.
Not possible. Not one region, not three, probably not Kanto at peak historical performance. The calculation had a ceiling and they'd found it.
"Wallace, are you talking about me behind my back again?"
The voice materialized out of the peaceful forest atmosphere without any warning.
Wallace nearly jumped.
"Mammon?!"
He spun around.
A young man in a black coat, standing on the path, wearing an expression of delighted innocence. Behind him: Caitlin, and — next to Caitlin — Elesa, in an outfit that was somewhat different from her Gym Leader wardrobe.
"What in the—how are you here?" Wallace's eyes were very wide.
Steven's expression was one he was working to keep neutral and not fully succeeding at.
"Elesa?!" Alder stared at the Nimbasa Gym Leader, processing. She'd been away. On vacation, supposedly. He'd gotten the reports. "Why are you — why are you with him?"
"Lord Mammon captured me," Elesa said.
"She's my prisoner," Mammon agreed cheerfully. "Don't worry, Champion Alder — I'll have her back in Nimbasa in a few days, in perfect health."
Alder's mouth worked.
He wanted to say something about this. He was aware that what was being described was, technically, a crime. He was also aware, looking at the assembled situation, that there was very little he was going to be able to do about it, and at least Elesa herself appeared to be physically fine and using complete sentences.
He filed this under "problems Unova has" and moved on.
"What are you doing here?" Steven asked.
"Touring Unova's many scenic locations. Didn't expect to run into you three." Mammon smiled. "What a coincidence, teachers."
—Teachers.
The word hit Wallace and Steven at the exact same moment, producing identical involuntary reactions.
Both of them had heard that specific tone of delighted address before. In Hoenn. Under circumstances that had resulted in photographs that were, even now, occasionally referenced by people who recognized their names.
Wallace's feet began moving backward, quiet and smooth, putting Steven between himself and Mammon.
He made it approximately one step before he stopped being able to move.
Dark Mewtwo. Of course.
Caught.
"Oh, Teacher Wallace — where were you going?" Mammon watched this with visible amusement. "I barely even spotted you trying to do that."
"I will not be cooperating," Wallace announced, with the particular dignity of someone who has been paralyzed by psychic force and is operating on pure principle. "Not today. Not here. You have nothing to use against me in Unova."
"What's happening?" Alder looked at Steven, who was developing an expression that suggested he knew more than he was ready to share.
"Mammon has… a creative hobby," Steven said carefully. "He likes to make content."
"Content?"
"Photography. Short videos. With particular… wardrobe choices involved."
Alder absorbed this slowly.
"Is it legal?"
Steven thought about this.
"I believe the photographs themselves are—"
"Mammon, whatever leverage you think you have," Wallace declared, interrupting this assessment, "it won't work. I've been in Unova. You have nothing on me here."
"Hm," Mammon said, in the tone of someone considering options.
"Mewtwo."
Dark Mewtwo's hand moved. One of the Poké Balls at Wallace's belt trembled, then floated free, then opened — and a Milotic landed on the forest path in a shower of light, regarding the situation with its large, graceful eyes.
"Wallace's Milotic," Mammon observed. "Female, if I remember correctly. Very beautiful specimen."
Wallace's expression went somewhere specific.
"Mewtwo, hold it still."
A subtle shift in psychic application. Milotic found that movement was no longer something it was doing.
Mammon reached for one of his own Poké Balls, turned it in his fingers, and released.
Shiny Gyarados. The red-scaled one, enormous, built with the specific quality of something that had been trained very well. It hit the forest path like a small geological event and regarded the immobilized Milotic with the blank, intense attention of its species.
Alder blinked several times.
"Gyarados, go lie on top of it."
The Shiny Gyarados did not question this instruction. It arranged its considerable bulk in the direction indicated.
"NOT MY MILOTIC—"
Wallace's voice had abandoned all pretense of dignity.
"Get it OFF her — Mammon, you absolute — she's not — Milotic is delicate, that thing is enormous, it's going to—"
"Relax," Mammon said. "Nothing is happening that Milotic wouldn't thank me for later. These two are perfectly matched, actually."
"I will COOPERATE," Wallace said, at a volume that disturbed several nearby bird Pokémon. "I will cooperate with everything, immediately, starting right now, please remove the Gyarados."
"Was that so difficult?"
Mammon recalled the Shiny Gyarados, which departed the scene with the untroubled calm of a Pokémon that had been given an assignment and completed it.
Milotic, released, immediately put as much distance between itself and the Gyarados's approximate former location as possible.
"I don't understand," Alder said quietly to Steven, while Wallace was still composing himself, "why that was a threat. Isn't it… wouldn't Milotic's eggs be quite—"
"Don't think about it," Steven said.
"But from a breeding perspective—"
"Alder."
"—a Shiny Gyarados and a high-quality Milotic would produce—"
"Alder."
Alder fell quiet.
"Good," Mammon said, clapping once. "We're a little pressed for time, so let's get started." He produced three sheets of paper and distributed them to the three Champions. "I've written a short scenario. Learn your lines, we'll shoot a few photos and a short video, and then we're done."
He watched the expressions moving across all three faces.
"Trust me. This content is going to go viral worldwide."
Steven's face was doing something that it was going to require significant effort to maintain control over.
Alder looked like he'd encountered plumbing issues.
Wallace's face had taken on the specific darkness of someone reading something that is offending them on multiple simultaneous levels.
"Mammon."
"Yes?"
Wallace pointed to a specific line on his script, face completely expressionless.
"I'm so sorry, dear Steven. I've already taken the shape of Alder. Please don't contact me today."
Wallace stared at this for a long moment.
"What," he said, "does this mean."
"In the scenario, you and Steven are in a relationship," Mammon explained, with the casual clarity of someone summarizing a plot that makes perfect sense to them. "Then you get scouted by Alder. Monday through Sunday you alternate — Monday through Sunday, actually, let me recalculate — Monday with Steven, Tuesday through Sunday with Alder, and the three of you live happily together."
A beat.
"Short-form content needs impact."
"..."
Wallace covered his mouth.
His eyes were doing something.
Steven had turned slightly to the side to address the middle distance.
How, Wallace's face said. How did anyone write this. How did this scenario exist in the world. I am unwaveringly devoted to the finest standards of artistry and aesthetic excellence and this scenario has me being described as having "taken the shape of Alder."
What does that even MEAN.
"This is completely insane," Wallace announced, after a considerable pause. "I am utterly loyal to Steven. I would never betray Steven. This scenario is fiction of the most irresponsible kind."
"Short-form drama," Mammon said, "is about impact."
(End of Chapter)
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Inkshaper
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you