Chapter 269: Mammon, Please Stop Regigigas!
"Qika~"
The "lights" on Regigigas's front kept flashing in rapid, urgent bursts, its massive frame radiating an almost unbearable weight of pressure.
"Salamence, go."
J called down to her mount, having no intention of wasting more time with Regigigas here. There was simply no point — at this scale, her petrification gun stood zero chance of working. And given Regigigas's raw power, this stretch of land clearly wasn't going to be enough to contain its rampage; Snowpoint City nearby was probably about to suffer for it. Not that J particularly cared about that part.
Salamence turned, ready to make its escape.
"Boss, we've lost contact with Lucky Seven's group — how are things on your end?" a subordinate's voice crackled suddenly over her communicator.
"Plans have changed. Everyone pull out — the target's gone out of control," J answered flatly. As for the lost contact with "Lucky Seven's group" — she didn't give it a second thought. Disposable underlings like that were never in short supply for her; with J's reputation in the trade, there was no shortage of poachers eager to run with her crew.
But right then, a violent, chilling premonition slammed into her — the unmistakable feeling of imminent death. That icy sensation, the kind that raised gooseflesh across her entire body — she'd only felt it a handful of times before, back when she'd first started out as a poacher.
J spun around instantly, catching sight of a massive beam of yellow light tearing through the air at incredible speed, aimed straight at her and Salamence. Hyper Beam — Regigigas's signature attack!
"Salamence!"
J's scream came out shrill and desperate.
Salamence caught it too, trying to dodge — but there wasn't nearly enough time, not even enough to raise a Protect barrier.
BOOM!
Hyper Beam struck Salamence dead-on, the deafening impact thundering out, a violent shockwave rippling outward with the force of it. Struck by Regigigas's attack, Salamence dropped from the sky like a cut kite, slamming hard into the ground, its life force clearly drained to the brink.
J tumbled off Salamence's back as it crashed down, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, sprawled flat on the ground, breath thin and fading. Though Salamence had absorbed most of the Hyper Beam's damage, J had still taken severe injuries from the blast. Her eyes had already begun to unfocus and glaze — perhaps she was about to die right there.
"Well, would you look at that. Pretty pathetic, honestly — that's a rather dramatic amount of blood."
A voice — half mocking, half amused — drifted into J's fading awareness. But her whole body had gone completely unresponsive by now; even turning her head had become nearly impossible.
"Mammon, this really isn't the moment for that kind of joke," Caitlin said, brow furrowing, exasperated with him. As she spoke, she moved quickly to kneel beside J, checking over her injuries.
The ground beneath them was still blanketed in snow — but the white snow under J's body was steadily turning red. Which was exactly why Mammon had called the blood loss "dramatic."
Caitlin noticed the flesh around J's left abdomen had been torn to a bloody ruin — clearly caught in the blast radius of the attack. She immediately pulled out a bottle of high-grade medicinal spray. Sure, medicine designed for Pokémon was far less effective on humans, but in an emergency like this, it could still help stabilize the wound somewhat.
"Caitlin, aren't you just the saint. This woman's Poacher J, and here you are, ready to save her life," Mammon said, strolling up behind Caitlin, genuinely marveling at the sight. "The crimes she's committed have probably already earned her a life sentence several times over, haven't they?"
"That's a separate matter, Mammon. She's still a person," Caitlin said, her refined features perfectly composed, answering in a clear, measured, resonant voice. "Whatever wrongs she's done, if it's within my power to help and I don't, I won't be able to live with that." Whatever crimes J had committed was one thing — her being critically injured and near death right now was an entirely separate matter. Saving her was a matter of Caitlin's own conscience; what happened to her afterward, once saved, was still whatever it needed to be. Caitlin understood that distinction perfectly clearly.
"That's exactly the thing about you people," Mammon said, unable to hold back a small laugh. This, too, was exactly what he genuinely admired about Champions like Caitlin and Steven — they carried a real, unforced goodwill toward the world. If Mammon stood in Caitlin's shoes, he probably couldn't bring himself to do the same — someone as thoroughly rotten as Poacher J, the sooner dead, the better, as far as he was concerned.
J's unfocused eyes had dimmed considerably by now, but she'd still caught the exchange between Caitlin and Mammon, her pale features carrying an unreadable expression, words failing her entirely.
"You can't save her, Caitlin — her injuries are too severe," Caitlin cut in bluntly. "That Hyper Beam probably ruptured her internal organs already. High-grade medicine can only treat surface wounds." Caitlin, being psychic, could sense the rough state of J's body directly. Unless she got rushed into a top-tier hospital immediately, there was maybe a slim chance of saving her — and even that was a long shot.
Cynthia stayed silent.
"Though Mammon's Little Sacred Ash should be able to save her," Caitlin added.
Little Sacred Ash was the single most effective healing compound Caitlin had ever encountered — and crucially, it worked remarkably well on humans too. Perhaps because its primary ingredient was Ho-Oh's own feathers?
"Don't look at me. I've got no obligation to save her," Mammon said, raising an eyebrow, smiling at Cynthia's gaze turning toward him. "And take a good look, Cynthia — see that thing raging off in the distance?"
Mammon pointed toward the mountain-sized "giant" far off in the distance — the legendary Regigigas. Sure, it had just struck down J and her Salamence, but it was still deep in a rampage, both massive arms swinging wildly, blast after blast of Hyper Beam tearing across the landscape in every direction — clearly ignoring the usual recharge-turn penalty that normally followed the move entirely. Exactly matching how it played out in canon — clearly, Regigigas had lost itself entirely to blind fury.
Hyper Beam thundered out again and again, smoke and debris filling the air, the whole area around Regigigas already reduced to complete devastation — mountainside, ground, and temple alike, all torn apart.
"No question about it — whatever set Regigigas off, this woman's clearly behind it, and right now she's just reaping what she sowed. Exactly what she deserves," Mammon said, voice thick with mockery.
"Of course — if you ask me nicely, I could hand over the Little Sacred Ash and save her life." The black-haired young man's mouth curled upward, dripping with malicious amusement. "But really think about it, Cynthia — do you actually want to save someone this thoroughly rotten? Enough to beg me for it?"
Caitlin's fine brow furrowed slightly, but she still said nothing. She'd more or less guessed what Mammon was up to — testing Cynthia's resolve, plain and simple. If Cynthia let his taunting talk her out of saving J, well — once that crack opened in someone's principles, sealing it back up again was nearly impossible.
"...Mammon. I'm asking you. Please, save her."
Cynthia didn't hesitate for long, lowering her guard and making the request directly. She held firm to her convictions — she couldn't stand by and watch a life slip away right in front of her, not when she had the means to stop it.
"You really are something else..."
Mammon couldn't help laughing at that. Expected, honestly — but that was exactly what made it interesting. That was Cynthia, through and through.
Mammon pulled the bottle of Little Sacred Ash from his bag and walked over to kneel beside J.
"Consider yourself lucky today. But from here on, your life belongs to Team Rocket."
Mammon crouched down, looking at J's ashen, drained face. He poured half the bottle directly onto her wound, mixed the remaining half into a bottle of water, and fed it into her mouth. Mammon showed no hesitation whatsoever about it — unlike Cynthia, once he'd saved J's life, she could get ready to spend the rest of it contributing to Team Rocket's greater glory. As for handing J over to Cynthia afterward? Not a chance.
Hearing that, something flickered across Cynthia's expression, but in the end she held her tongue, sighing quietly inside. What could she really say to that?
Unmistakably, the effect of Little Sacred Ash was immediate — the wound across J's body began healing almost instantly, her color returning noticeably.
"This medicine?" Watching it firsthand, Cynthia was genuinely stunned at the healing effect on display.
"If it were the real Sacred Ash, you could practically call it raising the dead. Little Sacred Ash's effect isn't quite that dramatic, but it's more than enough to pull someone back from death's door," Mammon said, rising to his feet. In under half an hour, J's injuries would likely be mostly healed — at the very least, definitively out of danger.
"Where does this come from?"
"Developed in-house by one of my companies. No point wondering — the reason Little Sacred Ash has such miraculous effects comes down to its main ingredient, which isn't easy to come by at all." Mammon didn't even need to guess what Cynthia was thinking — a treatment this dramatic, and effective on humans no less, practically qualified as a miracle drug. But Little Sacred Ash's raw material was Ho-Oh's own feathers, which permanently ruled out mass production. Not like he could just go pluck Ho-Oh bald, could he? Even Ho-Oh would take offense at that. Well — though Mammon figured, given Ho-Oh's own natural regeneration, a fresh coat of feathers probably wouldn't take her too long to grow back anyway.
"..." Cynthia genuinely wanted to know what the raw material actually was, but she'd at least learned one thing: Mammon's company's research capabilities were this absurd?
"Now then — on to the big guy."
Mammon gazed off toward Regigigas, still in the middle of laying total waste to the surrounding area.
"Huge, isn't it~" Mammon marveled. From his vantage point, Regigigas's sheer bulk looked genuinely mountain-scale — at least twenty or thirty meters tall. Quite different from the anime, though it did seem to check out regardless. Technically, per the Pokédex data, Regigigas measured only around 3.7 meters — roughly matching its anime portrayal too. But Mammon was quite confident those official figures were unreliable. Take Groudon, for example — Pokédex data listed ordinary Groudon at 3.5 meters, and Primal Groudon at 5 meters. But going by the anime, Primal Groudon's actual size clearly ran to at least ten-plus meters at minimum. And Mammon had seen Primal Groudon firsthand — he could say with confidence its actual size ran upward of fifteen meters, given that Primal Kyogre's body length alone approached twenty meters.
"At this rate, it'll probably reach Snowpoint City before long," Cynthia said, watching Regigigas's slow advance, pressing her lips together with real concern. Snowpoint Temple sat close enough to the city that, given Regigigas's destructive capacity, Snowpoint City wasn't going to survive the fallout unscathed.
"Obviously. Why are you looking at me?" Mammon said, eyeing her with genuine interest.
"Mammon, please — stop it," Cynthia asked again, appealing directly to Team Rocket's leader.
"Ha~ Cynthia, what exactly do you take me for?" Sure, the whole reason he'd come out here in the first place was for Regigigas — but Mammon obviously wasn't about to admit that right now. "What's in it for me?"
"But you could capture Regigigas, couldn't you?"
"Setting aside what use I'd even have for something with Slow Start, Cynthia — a legendary on this tier doesn't just decide to follow you because you feel like catching it," Mammon said, mocking. He genuinely was interested in Regigigas, sure, but whether it would actually agree to follow him was an entirely separate matter.
Cynthia drew a deep breath, her resolve steadily hardening. She knew she had no way to stop Regigigas on her own — she simply didn't have the power for it. But Mammon did. Mammon could do it, if he was willing to actually step in.
"If you can stop Regigigas from destroying Snowpoint City, Mammon, I'll agree to one request from you — as long as it doesn't cross my own limits."
"You sure about that?"
Mammon eyed her with real interest now.
"Joining Team Rocket? Or having a kid with me?"
Cynthia's breath caught sharply. Good grief — it's either joining Team Rocket or having his child?! Are those seriously the only two options on the table? And worst of all, she could already feel it — the sharp, pointed stare currently boring into her from a certain golden-haired friend nearby.
Cynthia broke into a cold sweat.
☆☆☆
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