Chapter 242: Starting Today, I, Mammon, Am the Boss of Team Rocket!!
"Hello, everyone. My name is Mammon. Team Rocket's Mammon."
This introduction propagated across the Kanto region in the time it takes sound to move through speakers.
Indigo Plateau.
Goodshow was in his office, in the process of lowering himself into his chair for a post-lunch rest.
He did not lower himself into the chair.
Mammon.
The chair remained un-sat-in as he stared at the radio on his desk.
Why is Mammon broadcasting.
Pallet Town.
A red-eyed boy turned his head toward the broadcast speaker mounted on a street post nearby.
Celadon City.
A young woman who enjoyed flower arrangement had just woken up from a nap and was looking at the radio in the corner of the Gym's back room.
Cerulean City.
A blue-haired Gym Leader in a cape paused mid-step, expression cooling several degrees.
Ecruteak City.
Five young women in kimono looked at each other across the back garden with identical expressions of complete puzzlement.
Goldenrod.
Rika was in the middle of something and stopped doing it.
Oh. She smiled slowly. There it is. Just as I'd expect from the man I chose.
An unnamed cold town somewhere cold.
An old man in a wheelchair sat in a room full of very detailed ice sculptures, listening to his radio. His hand moved through the fur of a Sneasel sleeping in his lap. His expression didn't change.
Across Kanto, the reactions were numerous and varied:
"Holy — did that actually happen?"
"Wait, is that the Mammon from the Conference? The one who won last year?"
"SPRING, GET IN HERE, your favorite person is on the radio — since when is Mammon in Team Rocket—"
"Who is Mammon?"
"Isn't he that kid from the Viridian Gym? Giovanni's son? How did he end up in Team Rocket—"
"This is unhinged, someone call the League—"
There were Team Rocket members hearing this and barely keeping themselves composed with excitement. There were people who recognized the name and were grappling with the implication. There were people who didn't recognize the name and were grappling with why a criminal organization was broadcasting on public radio.
Goldenrod City Police.
Looker was not sitting down anymore.
"They took the Goldenrod Radio Tower," she said, for the benefit of her officers, though this was already obvious to everyone in the room. "Team Rocket is using the Goldenrod Radio Tower."
The Goldenrod Radio Tower was one of the largest broadcast installations in Kanto-Johto. What went out from that tower reached most of the region.
She was already moving.
"You — organize a response team. You — contact the League immediately. Get me a line to the Cerulean Gym Leader, we need support. And someone get crowd control around the tower perimeter right now."
Her face was the specific shade of controlled fury that comes from an institution being targeted twice in recent memory by the same organization.
Last time they went after the Pokémon Association.
Now the Radio Tower.
Specifically Goldenrod's Radio Tower.
They're doing this on purpose.
Officers poured out of the building. Vehicles moved.
Inside the Radio Tower, a broadcast technician was experiencing a sustained crisis of professional identity.
They were looking at the person sitting behind the microphone.
They were realizing that the person sitting behind the microphone was Team Rocket.
Their hands were shaking. They were trying very hard to be calm about this.
Mammon had not looked at them once since sitting down.
"Of course, many of you may not know who I am. Allow me to explain."
His delivery was unhurried. Almost conversational. The kind of tone that went with a good chair and an afternoon to spare.
"Until today, I was only a top executive of Team Rocket. But today is a day worth remembering."
A pause.
"Congratulations are in order, everyone."
His voice changed. Something came into it — not louder, but more present. The kind of momentum that builds before something breaks.
"I have successfully disposed of the previous head of Team Rocket. There is only one person capable of leading Team Rocket to glory. Me."
The momentum arrived.
"Starting today — Team Rocket answers to me! I!! MAMMON!! THE NEW BOSS OF TEAM ROCKET!!"
The voice that came out of speakers across Kanto had a quality that couldn't entirely be described. Confident was too small a word. Arrogant was adjacent but not quite. It was the sound of someone who had decided something was true and was informing the universe.
In the broadcast room:
Kagura's eyes were wide. Then they weren't wide; they were bright.
He actually.
She'd known Mammon was going to do something significant. She hadn't thought he was going to do this. She was revising upward.
Gladion and N exchanged a look. The look said: we are part of an organization that just did this.
Caitlin looked at the back of Mammon's head and felt something she was choosing not to examine in detail right now.
He's getting more interesting by the day, she thought, which was one way to put it.
Indigo Plateau.
Goodshow's flower-white eyebrows had furrowed to a degree that would concern someone who knew him well.
Mammon disposed of the previous boss? And became the new one?
He knew who the previous boss was. He knew what that meant.
Mammon — this boy — had seized control of Team Rocket through internal means, and was now broadcasting that fact to the entire region.
The implications of that were significant in directions he needed to sit with for a moment.
Somewhere in Kanto-adjacent:
"Ugh. Bro. Giovanni—"
"I can tell my own expression, Groudon."
"You look like someone stole your wife and you haven't figured out yet that you're supposed to be mad about it."
"I'm going to remove the television."
"YOU CAN'T—"
"And the energy cubes."
"GIOVANNI I WILL HAUNT YOU WHEN YOU DIE—"
"I won't be dying for some time."
"—your bones will know no rest—"
Giovanni sat with the small earthquake being produced by Primal Groudon's tantrum, rubbed his temple, and thought about his son with an expression that nobody who had seen him on television in the past several months would have recognized.
He was proud of the boy.
He was also going to have to be very careful about the next several weeks.
Goldenrod Radio Tower. Exterior.
Looker arrived at speed. She recognized the person blocking the entrance without needing the briefing.
Chakra. Compact, wearing an expression that communicated he was having the time of his life.
"Inspector Looker. Fast response today."
"Chakra." Her voice had the quality of a door closing on something fragile. "What do you think you're doing."
"Preventing interruptions," Chakra said pleasantly. "The new Boss is in the middle of something. It would be very rude to disturb him."
New Boss, he'd said.
Sham, standing three steps behind Chakra, stared at the ceiling and thought about how much longer she intended to keep doing this.
"You've unlawfully seized a civilian broadcast facility," Looker said. "The employees inside — are they safe?"
"Completely. Nobody's getting hurt." Chakra waved a hand. "New Boss already made that very clear. We're not that kind of operation anymore." He paused to let that sit. "If you try to force your way in, though — I stop being able to guarantee anything. So maybe just listen to the nice broadcast."
He pointed up at the building's exterior speaker.
"I understand that many of you still see Team Rocket through the lens of what it used to be," the speaker said, in Mammon's unhurried voice. "That's going to change. Starting today, Team Rocket is something new. Team Rocket is the strongest organization in the world."
The voice had a quality that was difficult to respond to directly. Not threatening. Not hectoring. Just very, very certain.
"Consider yourselves fortunate, everyone. You are witnessing the beginning of a new era."
Looker stared at the speaker.
"That's all I wanted to say today, everyone. Goodbye~"
The broadcast ended.
And then—
The entire Kanto region did the thing that regions do when something unprecedented has just been announced.
It erupted.
(End of Chapter)
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