Chapter 161: Groudon: Glug… I Really Can't Hold Any More
"Teacher Steven, I am a member of Team Rocket, yes — but I have rights, don't I?"
Mammon smiled with radiant innocence.
"Even you, as Hoenn's Champion, can't just go around making unfounded accusations. I've been right here with all of you this whole time — what exactly have I done?"
"You—!!"
Even Steven's composure — and he had considerable composure — was cracking. He genuinely wanted to close the distance and settle this face-to-face.
Mainly because he was genuinely desperate right now.
"Calm down, Steven. Don't be impulsive."
Leon and Giovanni both grabbed his arms.
Kagura had arrived on Mega Flygon while all this was happening. Seeing Steven this worked up, the burning resentment she'd felt at being hung up on during their battle dissipated — replaced by thoroughly entertained curiosity at the spectacle.
"Steven, what happened?" Cynthia stepped close and asked him quietly.
Steven's chest was heaving, visibly working to push his emotions down and find his footing.
"Flooding. More than half of Hoenn has been hit. And it's still spreading — in about ten minutes the rain will blanket the entire region."
He said it with the weight of someone delivering catastrophic news.
Giovanni, Cynthia, and Leon all went still.
"The rain is too heavy. Rustboro is already flooding. Mauville — the coastline is rising fast. If this continues, the sea will come over into the city."
"And Slateport—"
Silence.
Leon and Cynthia's pupils contracted.
No wonder Steven had lost his composure. Multiple cities. And the people inside those cities hadn't evacuated — there'd been no warning.
The losses wouldn't stop at the cities.
"Mammon — was this you?!"
Giovanni's voice had genuine anger in it now, which was rare.
"How could you drag innocent people into this?!"
"No need to shout. And I'm genuinely not sure what you're talking about." Mammon returned the glare with a dismissive smile.
"Primordial Sea!" Leon said it tightly. "You said it yourself — this rain is from Primal Kyogre."
"It is from Primordial Sea. And?"
Mammon smiled pleasantly.
That smile made every person on the island feel their skin crawl.
"You can still smile right now?! Mammon — do you have any idea what you're doing?!"
Giovanni was shaking.
"How did you become this person?! Do you have any empathy at all?!"
"I'm sorry, my moral compass is a bit broken. For people who have nothing to do with me — I've never particularly cared about them."
Mammon raised an eyebrow.
You want to lecture me about morality? I don't have any morality to lecture.
"You—" Steven bit down on his words.
How could a person be this callous?
"Also — you seem to have gotten something backwards."
Mammon cut him off, watching Steven and the others with that half-smile.
"Didn't you come to challenge me?"
Silence.
Patter patter patter~
The only sound left on the island was the rain, hammering down without mercy.
Oh — and from the sea not far away.
Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug.
The non-flying type was fairly sure its stomach had expanded by at least two sizes. This damned fish — !!
Let me up! I genuinely cannot swallow any more!
Back on the island.
The group had gone completely quiet. Steven's face was drained of color.
"When you break it down — if you hadn't decided to come fight me, Kyogre wouldn't have Primal Reverted. No Primal Reversion, no Primordial Sea running at this scale."
Mammon's smile was somewhere between contemptuous and amused, watching the people in front of him without any hurry.
The rain hadn't stopped. It had been falling since the moment Kyogre Reverted — but only now, in this moment, did Steven feel truly cold.
"You seem to think Primal Kyogre is just strong in a straight fight. But did none of you stop to wonder — why does legend call Kyogre the Origin of the Sea?"
The dark-haired young man's voice drifted through the rain, clear and strangely distant.
"The black Rayquaza activated Delta Stream at Larousse. You all watched it happen. Did none of that register?"
And with that one sentence, Cynthia's mind went immediately to the apocalyptic winds, the churning black clouds, the sensation that the world itself was ending.
That had been Mega Rayquaza's ability?!
She thought about the rain filling the sky above her right now. Her jaw pressed tight.
"I did compliment you — you were right to find Groudon to counter Kyogre. Genuinely clever thinking. But I have to follow that compliment with another observation: you were really, extraordinarily stupid about it. Ha ha ha."
Mammon's laughter was grating. But none of the four could argue with it.
How were they supposed to argue? The battle had barely started, and Hoenn was already flooding.
Never mind whether they could beat Mammon from here — even if they did, what would it mean? Hoenn would be underwater.
No — that was actually the crux. Hoenn being underwater was the thing they couldn't bear, the thing they couldn't allow.
"Now you're starting to understand, I'd think. Want to guess how long Primordial Sea takes to swallow Hoenn?"
Mammon still hadn't let up, watching them with that leisurely taunt.
"And here's a bonus piece of good news for you — you should actually be grateful I took the Red Orb."
"If Groudon had Primal Reverted, its ability would become Desolate Land — a top-tier weather condition that is every bit the equal of Primordial Sea. Sufficient to dry out all of Hoenn."
"While it and Primal Kyogre fought — how long do you think it would take them to decide a winner? And then how long before Desolate Land and Primordial Sea together finished off Hoenn?"
Leon's eyes went involuntarily to the sea nearby.
The waves were still rolling and churning. Through the curtain of rain, a massive red shape could just be made out bobbing up and down in the water.
Honestly, the image was almost funny. But Leon couldn't laugh.
Because Mammon was right. If Groudon had Primal Reverted, Desolate Land blazing across all of Hoenn — alongside this downpour — the region would have been destroyed from both directions simultaneously.
"This…"
Leon's face had gone pale. They'd made a serious mistake.
They'd only thought about Primal Kyogre as a combat challenge, without ever thinking about what fighting it would actually do to the world around them.
Could they really be blamed for that? This was the first time any of them had dealt with a legendary of this scale.
But the self-reproach hit regardless.
"It's my fault."
Steven's hands had closed into fists at his sides. He was staring down, voice drained of everything.
The cold rain ran down through his hair and dripped from his face, but his chest felt colder than the rain.
He had been the one burning to drive Team Rocket out of Hoenn as quickly as possible. Finding Groudon, using it to counter Kyogre — that had been his decision.
And now it had come to this.
He had accepted, going in, that there might be another Larousse. He had made his peace with that.
But only a Larousse. One city. Not this.
Primordial Sea was steadily consuming the entire region. Given enough time, Hoenn itself could be submerged.
That was not a result Steven could accept. It was not something he could carry.
"Steven…"
Leon and Cynthia looked at him with complicated expressions. The decision had been his to make in the end — but they had all agreed to it. They had thought it was completely viable.
"Kagura, go ahead."
Mammon was in a fine mood. He was even taking photographs of Steven and the others with his phone.
"Right."
Kagura was mildly disappointed not to watch more of this unfold, but business came first. She patted Mega Flygon's back, and it shot into the distance and vanished into the rain.
The others noticed but had no energy to spare for it.
Giovanni took a slow breath and let his voice come down.
"Mammon. Whatever our differences, this is between us. Please — don't let it touch people who have nothing to do with any of this."
There was no question what those words meant. He was asking for terms.
Leon and Cynthia said nothing. There was nothing to say. Whatever came next, they had no choice but to seek an end to this — not just because of the flooding cities, but because if Primordial Sea kept running, all of Hoenn was going to pay for it.
"Oh?" Mammon regarded the four of them with considerable interest.
"My comprehension isn't the best. Teacher Steven — could you translate for me? What exactly is this esteemed Giovanni saying?"
He smiled. In the dark rainstorm, the expression looked like something that didn't belong on a human face.
He had no guilt about this. At the end of the day, they had come looking for him, hadn't they?
All Mammon had been trying to do was run a productive criminal organization in peace.
And these people had come charging in one after another, full of "we will destroy the evil Team Rocket" and "for the League and for justice" — he couldn't have stopped them if he'd tried.
What was he supposed to do? He was acting in self-defense.
"Mammon, I mean to say—" Giovanni tried to continue.
"Shh~"
Mammon made a quiet motion with one finger.
"I didn't ask you. Dear Father. I want Teacher Steven to translate." The smile shifted toward something more dangerous.
"Mammon, don't push—"
Giovanni's voice dropped very low.
But before he could finish, Steven reached out and stopped him.
"Let me. This is my responsibility to carry, Giovanni."
Steven pulled himself together, drew a breath, and looked at Mammon directly.
"Mammon. I apologize. This situation is my fault. Please accept my apology."
Steven bowed — low and without hesitation.
Giovanni, Cynthia, and Leon all watched in silence.
"Tch~ I'll give you that much, Teacher Steven. You know when to hold and when to fold. Quite the person."
Mammon clicked his tongue. This man hadn't even paused before doing it.
"I will have Roxanne pull the League personnel out immediately. Every Team Rocket member who was detained will be released. Mammon — please have Kyogre stop the rain."
Steven's face was pale. He had never imagined, in any version of his future, that he would be asking for peace from a criminal organization.
"Since Steven is being so sincere — I suppose that's acceptable."
Mammon nodded, genuinely satisfied.
He'd never intended to run Primordial Sea indefinitely anyway.
He didn't care about ordinary people in the abstract — but actually sinking Hoenn would be a weight of consequence he had no interest in carrying. He wasn't trying to destroy the world. He wasn't that kind of person.
Not necessary. It really, truly wasn't.
This had been about giving Steven and the others something to hurt over. Showing them what Primal Kyogre actually was.
That had gone very smoothly.
Whatever damage the rain had caused in the meantime — that had nothing to do with him.
They were the ones who'd picked the fight.
"Thank you."
Some of the tension left Steven's chest. Even Mammon, despicable as he was, kept his word. That much, at least, had been consistent.
But the heaviness didn't lift. This operation had been a failure on every possible level. They'd gotten nothing, and in the end brought real harm. Steven felt he had failed Hoenn. He was already contemplating resignation.
"Kyogre — hm?"
Mammon turned toward the sea.
The fat fish had played long enough by now, surely.
But when he looked, he stopped.
Floating on the surface of the sea was a massive red shape.
Groudon.
But the thing was — Groudon's stomach was visibly, dramatically distended. The most accurate description available: ten-months pregnant.
It genuinely looked like it was with child.
It was bobbing on the water, which — when you thought about it — suggested that whatever was inside it was keeping it buoyant.
How much water had Primal Kyogre actually pumped into it?
And looking closer — Groudon's eyes had rolled back in its head, and from the corners of its mouth, a thin but continuous trickle of seawater was flowing out.
Glug…
I genuinely… can't hold any more.
(End of chapter)
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