Chapter 261: Team Rocket's Idol Group! Me and Mammon Are Just Meant to Be!
Blueberry Academy, Unova.
"Finally, a new mission!! Oh my god, I've been waiting forever!"
"I want to fight an evil organization! I want to fight an evil organization, yo!!"
"Ugh! Are you people dogs or something? How are you moving this fast?!"
"Why are they only taking fifty people?? Waaah, I want to go too — I'd even offer to warm the boss's bed if that's what it takes."
"You little menace, are you seriously offering to warm the boss's bed?! You're just thirsty for his body!"
Blueberry Academy was in full uproar, leaving no shortage of lower-ranked students utterly baffled. Had all their senior upperclassmen collectively lost their minds?
"Dulse, Dulse! How'd it go? Did you get a spot?"
Roxie jogged into the League Club office, finding Dulse and the others already there — including siblings Wulin and Danyu. Wulin's ranking had been climbing at a shocking pace lately; he'd already broken into Blueberry's Elite Four, his strength closing in fast on Dulse's own. He'd fully established himself as the academy's biggest dark horse.
"No rush, no rush." Dulse leaned back in his chair like some kind of old man, wearing his usual lazy, easy grin.
"How can you not be rushed?! There's only fifty slots, and half the school's fighting over them — Dulse, your attitude is honestly terrible! What about you, Wulin, Reisso?"
Roxie crossed her arms, deadly serious, voicing her frustration with Dulse.
"I didn't get a spot. Waah, my Combusken's Mega Stone..." Reisso's face crumpled, still hoping to bank enough merit points to redeem a Mega Stone for his ace Combusken. Mega Evolution had been steadily spreading in popularity, and given how dramatically it could boost an individual Pokémon's raw combat power, the pure strength gain from Mega Evolution genuinely outpaced Terastallization — Terastallization mattered more for team-wide tactical utility, while Mega Evolution delivered a massive spike in single-Pokémon strength.
"I didn't get a slot either — those people are just too fast on the draw," Nanu sighed as well.
"You're all just too slow — I got a spot," Roxie said, propping her hands proudly on her hips.
She'd already used her merit points to redeem the female Ralts she'd wanted, and her next target was a Gardevoirite. Sure, she came from a well-off family, but Mega Stones were still fairly scarce these days — Boss Kiku was already helping her source one, but landing one through the redemption system herself would be even better.
"What about you two, Dulse?"
"Heh~ Wulin and I are a bit different from you all." Dulse smiled, easygoing as ever, pulling out his phone and opening the Alpaca app — his profile showed a premium member account.
"What's this?"
"Haha~ It's a verification of both strength and status. Wulin and Dulse are both Elite Four-caliber trainers now, so we're premium members," Danyu explained, a bit resigned — she hadn't gotten a slot either. "They get to skip competing for slots entirely — priority access to missions, as a perk."
"What?!"
"That's outrageous!!"
"Damn it, I want that perk too!"
Roxie, Nanu, and Reisso were all thoroughly envious.
"Haha~ Can't help it! Old Dulse's finally getting his moment to shine!" Dulse laughed, rare for him. Feels great!! This was exactly the treatment an Elite Four-caliber trainer like himself deserved. Smooth sailing.
"Well, there's no slots left, but couldn't you two just pay for it yourselves and go anyway?" Wulin offered, thinking it over.
"Eh? Is that allowed?" Danyu blinked — honestly, she really did want to join this "event."
"Should be, right? The company covers round-trip airfare for people who got a slot, but if you cover your own ticket, that should work?" Roxie figured it was plausible.
"Hey, hey, hey! Wulin, aren't you basically adding more competition for the rest of us fighting over merit points?" Dulse couldn't help grumbling. Merit points were already scarce enough — if Danyu and everyone else tagged along too, that just meant even more people splitting the pie.
"Dulse! That's a pretty bad attitude to have!" Roxie crossed her arms again, expression stern. "We're all part of Blueberry Academy — we ought to support each other. And speaking of merit points, you and Wulin are honestly the worst offenders here!"
Roxie pouted. Dulse and Wulin got along well and were the academy's clear standouts in strength, and the two of them had been hoarding an outsized share of missions between them, racking up the most points by far.
"Ha~ Just kidding, obviously." Dulse laughed it off, a little awkwardly.
"More and more young trainers have been joining the company lately, and we've even got someone as good as Gym Leader Elesa on board now — us academy folks really need to stick together more."
"Yeah, yeah. I wonder how strong that evil organization in Sinnoh actually is."
"Probably not as strong as Team Plasma, I'd guess."
The group kept chatting. Sure, Team Plasma was history now, but the ones who'd gotten thoroughly wrecked by Colress, and shaken to the bone by N's Zekrom radiating pure draconic pressure, still got excited comparing notes on it. Yeah — they collectively agreed Team Plasma had probably been tougher than whatever this Team Galactic outfit in Sinnoh amounted to.
Meanwhile, in a café in Nimbasa City, Nora, Touko, and Elesa sat together.
"Heheh~ Sinnoh! So exciting!" Nora browsed through Sinnoh reference material, brimming with energy — this would be her first time visiting another region.
"Team Galactic — wonder if they'll actually be tough to deal with," Touko murmured, chin propped on one hand, scrolling through forum updates.
"No worries at all — with Mammon around, there's basically zero real danger. We just need to focus on clearing out enemies and racking up merit points," Nora said, thoroughly unbothered. Mammon was ridiculously strong, after all — with him as the safety net, there was nothing to worry about, safety-wise.
"You~ Can't go a single day without Mammon's name coming out of your mouth these days." Touko rolled her eyes.
Elesa smiled faintly, her lovely eyes catching a slight ripple.
"Hmph~ Touko, you really have zero self-awareness as a girl. A prime specimen like Mammon — you've got to be proactive about these things, you know," Nora scoffed at Touko's comment.
"Nora, Mammon already has a girlfriend," Elesa said, glancing over at her.
"Exactly — they're already a pair. You're not seriously planning on being the third wheel, are you?" Touko figured Nora's head was a bit scrambled on this topic.
"So what if I am?" The bun-haired girl said it with total conviction, not the slightest hint of guilt. "They're not even married — how does that make me a 'mistress'? I'm just pursuing my own happiness, thank you very much!" Nora's voice carried real confidence. "And besides — I'm gorgeous, I've got the figure, and my talent's outstanding too. Mammon and I would be a genuinely perfect match!"
Nora felt she hadn't said anything wrong at all. A guy as impressive as Mammon having a girlfriend was completely normal — but they weren't married yet, were they? As long as they weren't married, she still had a shot at winning him over. And once she became Mammon's bride in the end, well — the other women could go cry about it then. Besides, someone as exceptional as herself and Mammon were genuinely destined for each other — she had natural good looks, an incredible figure, and trainer talent basically unmatched in all of Unova except maybe Touko. She really was the most fitting wife for Mammon, yo!
"...That's some seriously twisted logic." Touko was at a loss for words.
"Hmph~ Once I've won Mammon over, you can go be jealous all you want." Nora figured her good friend was just a bit too straight-laced about all this. Touko was great in every way except her head was too rigid, and if you weren't a little shameless about it, how were you supposed to come out on top in life? Stealing a man — as long as you actually pulled it off, that was fine, and eventually people would just say she and Mammon were meant to be, plain and simple.
"Gym Leader Elesa, what do you think?" Touko was even more at a loss now — this was the first time she'd ever heard someone justify stealing a taken man with this much conviction. So she pinned her hopes on Elesa talking some sense into Nora instead.
"I think..." Elesa propped her chin on her hand, stirring her coffee gently with a spoon, glancing at Nora. "Honestly, Nora's got a point. As long as he's unmarried, anyone has the right to pursue their own happiness."
A faint smile crossed Elesa's cool, striking features. Well — otherwise, what exactly was her own thing with Mammon supposed to be? And Elesa understood Mammon better than either of these two girls, honestly — she knew perfectly well that with his notoriously flirtatious nature, no single woman was ever going to hold him down alone. She herself didn't stand much of a chance competing directly against Caitlin or Mammon's actual girlfriend — but Nora did have a shot. Just as Nora herself had said — she had the looks, the figure, the talent — why shouldn't she throw her hat in the ring?
"Heheh~ Gym Leader Elesa gets it." Nora broke into a wide, triumphant grin, shooting Touko a smug glance.
Touko rolled her eyes again, shaking her head, giving up on trying to talk sense into anyone.
"Anyway — there's going to be a lot of competition on this Sinnoh trip. Let's work together and grab as many merit points as we can," Elesa said, steering the conversation elsewhere.
"Mm-hm!! Exactly! I really want to trade for that Therian Landorus!" Nora's eyes sparkled — she'd had her eye on Therian Landorus for a while now, steadily banking merit points toward it. Unfortunately, without any major operations happening in Unova lately, points had been trickling in painfully slowly.
"I checked, and it looks like most of the people signed up for this are from Blueberry Academy," Touko noted.
"Hmph! Those students should just focus on studying, honestly," Nora said, thoroughly unimpressed.
"It's fine — as long as we play our cards right, I'm sure our haul from this won't be bad either," Elesa said. She wanted to keep growing stronger herself too — sure, she knew her own talent didn't match natural prodigies like Nora or Touko, but pushing toward Elite Four-tier as fast as she could would still count as real progress. And getting stronger meant needing quality Pokémon and rare resources — both of which Team Rocket's "store" offered plenty of. Elesa knew perfectly well that if she just swallowed her pride and asked Mammon directly, he'd likely grant her request, provided it wasn't too outrageous. But she still preferred to earn things on her own merit — otherwise, wasn't she just being "kept" by Mammon outright? How could she hold her head up in front of Caitlin then?
A day passed.
Hearthome City.
"Lord Mammon, we recently located a large poaching syndicate operational base — with quite a few well-known Pokémon poachers among them." In an outdoor rest area, Gladion delivered his report to Mammon. "One of our squads went in to clear it out, but the operation failed."
"Oh?" Mammon raised an eyebrow. Even without an executive leading the squad, Rocket's elite units were still solidly capable — this poacher base evidently had a fair number of genuinely skilled trainers in it.
"Once this current operation wraps up, send those temp workers in for another go," Mammon said with a smile, sipping his juice. Isn't this exactly what recruiting all these 'temp workers' is for? Full of youthful energy and drive, and — most importantly — genuinely a pleasure to deploy. Send them after evil organizations and poaching syndicates, and they never held back for a second.
"Lord Mammon, are we really okay operating out in the open like this?" Platinum glanced around nervously — they were about to move on Galactic's Hearthome Building next, a large structure right in the heart of the city.
"Don't worry, I've got you two covered if anything comes up. You just focus on clearing out the Galactic members inside," Mammon said, mouth curling up slightly.
"But what if Officer Jenny and her people show up?" That was Platinum's real worry — she really didn't want to end up clashing with an actual League officer.
"I'll have someone draw them off. Oh, look — your team for this operation's already here." Mammon nodded toward the distance.
Platinum and Paul looked over, curious. Mammon had mentioned the bulk of this operation's main force would be young trainers close to their own age, coming in from Unova — commonly known, of course, as "temp workers."
"Come to think of it, a lot of them are girls, huh. Could probably form a whole Team Rocket idol group at this rate," Mammon mused, glancing at Platinum, then over at Nora and Touko. Throw Mitsuki, Caitlin, and Kagura into the mix, and — all striking, all young — yeah, not bad at all. The seeds of a proper Team Rocket idol group were already taking shape.
(End of Chapter)
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