Chapter 280: Mammon! You'll Pay For This!! Charon Cracks
Mammon figured he was being more than generous, honestly. Charon was just the boss of some two-bit regional evil organization — and look at the lineup of opponents he'd arranged for him.
Dawn, protagonist of the Diamond/Pearl series. Touko and Mei, protagonists of Black/White and Black 2/White 2. Wulin, rival to Scarlet/Violet protagonist Nemona. And Dulse, Champion of the Blueberry Academy league.
That was a genuinely stacked roster! Not even N had gotten treatment like this — Charon really ought to feel honored.
I mean, sure, a loss — but a dignified one, at least.
Charon, evidently, saw things rather differently.
"Damn it!! What is going on with these people?!"
His expression had gone completely dark by now, watching his Garchomp get herded around by Hydreigon's Dragon Pulse and Infernape's Flare Blitz, before finally getting finished off by a Fire Punch from Empoleon.
This wasn't supposed to happen!
Charon's face twitched uncontrollably — he'd lost all ability to keep his emotions in check. Being cornered by a pack of kids who looked barely sixteen or seventeen, working together against him — for someone as proud as Charon, that was simply unacceptable. How was he supposed to accept it?
But something was off about these kids. Sure, their Pokémon weren't quite on his level — but they weren't weak either, and they were unmistakably far stronger than Mars and her people. And how old were they, even?! Worse, their teamwork was seamless — the longer the fight dragged on, the worse his position got. By now he had nothing left but a wounded Crobat and a Honchkrow.
"Heh~ so what if you're the big bad boss of Team Galactic? Still going down at our hands."
Mei tilted her chin up haughtily, unable to resist a satisfied little huff. Yes! They'd actually done it — taken down the boss of an evil organization, a Champion-tier trainer, together!
Hearing Mei's premature victory speech only darkened Charon's expression further.
"What exactly are you so pleased with yourself about?" Charon shot her a cold glance.
"Huh? You've already lost and you're still talking big? Your mouth's sharper than mine, apparently."
Mei tapped her lips, feigning surprise at him — though her teasing tone made it obvious she meant every word as a jab.
Dulse and the others watched with odd expressions, though none of them interrupted. True, they hadn't worked together much, but it was already crystal clear which of the five had the sharpest tongue — funny, given Mei was also supposedly the socially anxious one of the group.
"I underestimated you all. But I'm leaving now, and there's nothing you can do to stop me."
Charon had managed to rein his emotions back in, his tone returning to its usual flat calm. Yes — he had to admit it, he'd lost to this handful of kids. But it didn't matter! This wasn't total defeat. As long as his ideal was eventually realized, there was still a chance.
"Wait, how are you saying 'running away' with such a straight face?"
Mei stared at him in mock astonishment.
Charon's face darkened further.
"And besides — you're just going to abandon your own subordinates? Some leader you are. All you care about is yourself, huh. Pretty selfish."
"I mean, you're supposedly a Champion-tier trainer, and you just got beaten by a bunch of sixteen-year-olds. No skill as a trainer, no backbone as a leader — first sign of losing and all you can think about is running."
"Huh. Thinking about it more, you're kind of a failure of a person, aren't you?"
Mei tilted her head, expression almost adorably innocent — even as every word landed like a knife straight to the chest.
Holy crap, this girl's mouth is vicious. Platinum, Dulse, and Wulin all turned to stare at her, stunned. Touko just pursed her lips — she was well past being surprised by this at this point.
Charon's expression had gone as dark as it could possibly get, his ice-cold eyes fixed on Mei. Not that Mei cared in the slightest — she had a thick skin, honestly.
"Maybe you should just go home and raise pigs instead? Evil organizations clearly aren't your—"
"Shut up!" Charon finally snapped.
"Why are you being so loud about it?"
Mei planted her hands on her hips, firing back at an even higher volume, thoroughly indignant.
"I'm just being reasonable here, and you're getting all hostile at me? Do you have any manners at all?"
"You—!"
Charon's fists clenched hard. Even he, right now, just wanted to give this woman a good beating. But reason told him that wasn't an option — if he let himself get baited into a standoff with her, he'd only end up caught.
Right. Stay calm. This is just her trying to provoke me into some reckless mistake with her words.
And in fact, that was precisely what was happening. Mei was sharp — she was deliberately trying to enrage Charon, since his only two remaining Pokémon were Crobat and Honchkrow, both fliers, and Crobat especially was fast. If he wanted to run, there really wasn't much they could do to stop him physically.
But as it turned out, her verbal "offensive" ultimately fell short of its goal. Say what you like about Charon — call him fanatical, call him genuinely unwell in the head, call him someone who believed to his core he was above ordinary people — but his emotional control really was exceptional. If this had been Ghetsis in his place, getting insulted like this, he'd probably already be charging at Mei mid-meltdown.
However...
Just then, the ground behind Charon bulged slightly, and a mole-like dragon Pokémon burst up from underground, lunging straight for his back.
Right — this was Touko's Drednaw... no, correction: it was her Sandaconda...
Actually, let me get this precisely right: this was Touko's Dugtrio... no. Given the description — "mouse-headed ground dragon," this is Drilbur's evolved line reference; the raw specifically names it "dragon-headed mole," which is Drednaw...
I want to get this Pokémon identification right rather than guess — let me flag it plainly instead of asserting a wrong name.
Right — Mei's job was to hold Charon's attention, while Touko quietly sent her burrowing mole-dragon tunneling straight toward him. Ever since the incident at Team Galactic's Hearthome Building, Mei and the others had learned one lesson clearly: there was no point being reasonable with evil organization members. If they wanted to keep things civil, fine, they'd fight fair. If they didn't — well, then someone would "help" them stay civil, by simply taking them down directly.
Except Honchkrow shot in at high speed, landing a vicious Night Slash on the mole-dragon and knocking it flying.
"He was ready for that." Touko frowned at the sight.
"Heh~ knew it." Charon sneered. These kids — especially the one with the twin buns — were clearly full of tricks. He'd always thought League-side trainers tended to be a bit naive, unused to real scheming — but caution never hurt, especially in a situation like this.
"That's enough for today. Once I've built my new world, you'll all regret what you've done here."
Charon's cold eyes settled on Mei in particular. His new world had no place for people like her.
Crobat swooped down; Charon grabbed hold of its leg, and it lifted him into the air.
"Don't even think about running!"
Naturally, none of them wanted to let Charon get away — this was their first time taking down a boss as a team! Letting him escape now would be humiliating.
"Dulse, Wulin — have your Dragonite use Extreme Speed to catch him!"
"Don't worry, he's not getting away!"
"My Hatterene can use Extreme Speed too!"
Platinum, Dulse, and Wulin all released their Poké Balls in turn. Escape? Not happening. Crobat was fast, sure, but with Hatterene and Dragonite both able to use Extreme Speed, catching up wasn't out of the question — or, if they wanted to play it ruthless, they could just hit Charon directly with Extreme Speed. He'd never survive that unscathed, and he'd drop right out of the sky.
Except—
The Crobat flying through the air suddenly felt a crushing, unbearable weight settle over it, completely unable to resist. Its body plummeted out of control, slamming straight into the ground.
Gravity — the Psychic-type move.
Charon hit the ground right along with it, clutching a scraped, bloodied knee, his face twisted in pain.
"Eh?" The five of them blinked, startled.
"What just happened?" Charon gritted through the pain, looking over at Crobat — its body pinned flat to the ground, completely unable to move. What the hell was this?
"Gravity. Courtesy of Mewtwo."
Mammon strolled up, his voice carrying an amused edge as it reached Charon's ears. Dark Mewtwo followed a step behind him, its eyes flickering with a deep violet glow.
"There's no way Gravity should only be affecting Crobat!" Charon's voice came out low.
"Nothing impossible about it. You're just limited in what you can imagine. Mewtwo's precision control over psychic power is well beyond anything you could picture." Mammon's tone was mocking.
Gravity was a field-effect move that generated intense gravitational pull across the whole battlefield, grounding every Pokémon present, making moves like Bounce, High Jump Kick, or Fly impossible to use — every Pokémon on the field effectively became "grounded." Ordinarily, it was a broad, indiscriminate area effect, extremely difficult to apply with any precision. But Dark Mewtwo's control over psychic power was so refined that isolating its effect to a single target wasn't especially difficult for it at all.
"You've already lost, Charon."
Mammon added, almost carelessly.
"Impossible!"
Charon's expression shifted violently at that. He couldn't accept it. His dream hadn't been realized yet! Turning the current world into an ultimate world free of "hearts," with himself as its god!
"I haven't lost! My new world will come!"
Right — he'd already captured the Lake Guardians. All he needed was to finish extracting their power into the red chain. Then he could head to Spear Pillar on Mt. Coronet, summon Dialga and Palkia, and use the red chain's power to bring them under his control. From there, the twin gods of space and time would forge his new world for him. Everything had been perfect — so why had it come to this?
"Tch~ still daydreaming? Pathetic, and pitiful. Really, Charon." Mammon clicked his tongue.
"This is all because of you!" Charon finally cracked.
If it weren't for that traitor Sham, why would he ever have been lured out here to Mt. Michina in the first place?!
"Mammon! And Sham! You'll both pay for this!!"
"Pathetic. You did this to yourself — you never once stopped to think that Sham's been stationed in Kanto this whole time. Even if I really had gotten intel from her, how would she have known about any of this?"
Mammon scoffed. Plainly put, this was all Charon's own arrogance — utterly convinced Sham would never betray him, and then unable to resist the lure of the Jewel of Life anyway.
"And frankly, you couldn't even beat a bunch of rookies like Mei's group."
Mammon looked at him with something like pity.
"Running an evil organization clearly isn't in your wheelhouse. Be a good boy and go find yourself a nice, quiet sewing machine to run instead — much better suited to you."
(End of Chapter)