Chapter 163: Mammon Says He Wants to Be the Next Arceus!
Steven had always considered himself a fairly mature and rational person. When it came to the people he let into his life, he'd never once cared about status or background.
What he looked for was character and depth of thought.
He was the heir to Devon Corp, the most powerful Trainer in Hoenn — and yet everyone who knew Steven understood that he was, genuinely, a remarkable human being. Looks, temperament, integrity, conviction, strength. In the same way that Cynthia was considered a near-perfect woman, Steven could be called a near-perfect man.
One might even argue Steven was the more complete of the two. Cynthia had come from an ordinary middle-class family in Celestic Town, her only notable lineage being a grandmother who ran a historical research institute. Whereas Steven —
Devon Corp was one of the premier enterprises in the world. By output and reach, almost nothing compared to it. And Steven was its heir. The weight of that background spoke for itself.
Though at the level that people like Steven and Cynthia operated, the size of one's fortune had long since ceased to matter in any meaningful way.
But Steven was in self-examination right now.
He was going back through the past month or two, and the more he looked, the more unsettled he became.
Team Rocket hasn't actually done anything bad?!
Steven arrived at this conclusion with a jolt.
Setting aside the principle of preventive action — when he thought hard about it, Team Rocket in Hoenn had not, as far as he knew, committed a single harmful act.
Absorbing Team Aqua and Team Magma had been a conflict between criminal organizations. For Hoenn itself, it had essentially no negative impact.
In fact, if anything, the disappearance of two extremist organizations obsessed with legendary Pokémon was strictly a net positive for Hoenn.
Because looking at it now — Team Aqua and Team Magma had actually been close to succeeding. They'd found the Orbs. They'd located where Kyogre and Groudon slept. If they'd woken those two up on their own terms, Hoenn would have been in chaos.
Then there was the matter of Joseph Stone. But based on his subsequent conversations with his father, Mammon's group had gone after Stone to drag his buried crimes into the light — to ensure he couldn't keep hiding what he'd done to Shelly.
And Stone had deserved exactly that.
As for the photos of him and Wallace in… memorable attire — thinking about it carefully, that was purely Mammon's idea of entertainment. Aside from some reputational embarrassment, there had been no real harm.
Steven's expression kept shifting. He'd taken stock of everything he actually knew — and the Hoenn branch of Team Rocket had, by every measure he could apply, done nothing wrong.
Not "apparently" nothing wrong. Actually nothing wrong.
"Was I mistaken?"
Steven's face was pale.
At the end of the day, the weight of preconception had been too heavy. The Kanto Team Rocket had committed crimes beyond counting. Rigorously guarding Hoenn against Team Rocket — that had been entirely reasonable. Wanting to drive them out — that had been entirely reasonable.
Was it wrong to want to remove them before any harm was done? Of course not.
The name "Team Rocket" alone came with a history. Defensive action was always correct.
But Steven's feelings were at their most complicated right now, after everything the Primordial Sea had done to his region, and all the self-reproach that had brought.
"Steven — don't let his rhetoric get to you. Mammon may be right about the outcomes. But his motivations were never what he's describing. He's reasoning backwards from results."
Giovanni said it quietly.
Was that a problem, though?
Cynthia's brow furrowed slightly. She thought Giovanni's framing was a little off.
Intent, process, result — all three mattered, but not equally. In her view, results and process were nearly equal in weight. Intent, placed against the other two, was the lightest of the three.
Though she understood what Giovanni was doing. His relationship with Mammon was particular. What he cared about most was probably Mammon's intent.
"Tch~ Dear Father, you have no mercy at all. Is it really that hard to acknowledge that I've changed Team Rocket?"
Mammon clicked his tongue.
"If all you wanted was to change Team Rocket, why come to Alola and Hoenn?" Giovanni said, his voice low.
"Are you claiming that under your leadership, Team Rocket isn't an organization that does evil? If you genuinely wanted to prove that — why didn't you change the Kanto branch?"
He pressed forward.
"What you're saying has no real meaning. Team Rocket is not yours to own."
"Admit it, Mammon. The reason you can't walk away from Team Rocket is because you need it to prove something. Prove your own worth."
Giovanni's eyes didn't leave Mammon.
"The world doesn't need Team Rocket! You're strong — genuinely strong — but neither you nor Team Rocket can change this world."
The last black rainclouds were drifting apart overhead. Clean bars of sunlight broke through, falling across the sea, which had returned to stillness.
But the smile on Mammon's face slowly faded.
"Oh?"
Mammon turned the Poké Ball in his hands, a small, slow rotation.
"The Boss position in Team Rocket — it will be mine, sooner or later."
He said it without inflection. The same effortless arrogance, as natural as breathing, as though the outcome had never been in doubt.
The group's expressions shifted at those words — though was it really a surprise? Not particularly.
Someone like Mammon — this proud, this driven — was never going to stay in second place indefinitely, especially given how strong he'd become.
If anything, Leon thought it would be more surprising if Mammon didn't remove the current Boss and take the seat. He even found himself mildly curious what that moment would look like.
It would probably be quite a scene.
"And Dear Father — you've also gotten something wrong about me."
"Do you think that little of me, after everything? Proving my own worth?" Mammon let out a short laugh.
"That's long past caring about."
Dark Mewtwo's psychic field gathered, and Mammon rose slowly from the ground.
Primal Kyogre spread its wings and came forward, receiving him.
"Mammon — what do you actually want?"
Giovanni's voice dropped into something urgent.
"A higher place to stand!!!"
Mammon looked down at the four of them. From the back of Primal Kyogre, he had the look of something that belonged to the sky looking down at the earth below.
Primal Kyogre's wings moved slowly, its body shimmering with soft blue and gold light — magnificent and terrible.
"What?"
The group stared.
"No one stands at the top from the beginning. Not you, not me — not even gods."
Mammon reached up to find his glasses, then remembered they weren't there. It didn't matter.
He swept his dark hair back with one hand, slicking it into place, and his expression settled into something cold-eyed and imperious.
"But this world has gone without a king on the highest throne for far too long."
"From this point forward — I will stand at the top."
The young man's voice rang out across the sea and the sky.
Silence.
Complete, stunned silence.
Everyone stared at the figure standing on Primal Kyogre's head.
What had Mammon just said? Stand at the top of what, exactly?
And then Steven understood. His breath came in sharply.
This man — he wanted to become this world's Arceus?
"That's delusion, Mammon! Pure delusion!"
Leon's voice was heavy.
"The world is fine as it is. It does not need someone like you!"
Steven said it too. A moment ago he had been halfway toward wondering whether Team Rocket under Mammon might be something he could accept.
That thought was gone now.
Maxie and Archie had only wanted to expand the sea or the land. And Mammon was saying he wanted to stand above heaven itself?
"Mammon, how did you become this person?! You're not the Mammon I knew anymore!"
Giovanni's voice was raw.
"Not the Mammon you knew anymore? I'm sorry to hear that, Dear Father. That version of me no longer exists."
Mammon returned it with a quiet, easy smile.
"Oh, before I forget — here."
He reached into his bag and produced an Orb pulsing with a faint red glow, a clear Ω engraved at its center.
The Red Orb.
Mammon tossed it to Giovanni. Giovanni caught it and looked from the Orb to Mammon.
"What does this mean?"
"A small gift from a son to his father. I'm looking forward to our next meeting."
The corner of Mammon's mouth slowly climbed into something that held real menace.
And immediately, everyone understood exactly what he was doing.
A Primal-Reverted Groudon — its power was self-evidently beyond control. They'd just witnessed firsthand what Primal Kyogre's Primordial Sea did. Primal Groudon's Desolate Land was its equal. In Mammon's own words — sufficient to scorch every living thing in Hoenn.
And if someone used Primal Groudon to fight Primal Kyogre — the consequences would be unthinkable.
And beyond that: now that Groudon had the Red Orb back — would it even cooperate? Or would it simply go out of control?
"Farewell, Champions. I hope next time you'll manage to be a little more entertaining."
Uuunn~
Primal Kyogre's resonant call rang across the sky. It turned and flew, and within moments had vanished beyond the horizon.
Steven watched it disappear until there was nothing left to see, then pressed his fingers slowly against his temple.
"It's over."
He moved to turn — and his legs gave out.
"Careful!"
Leon's hand shot out and caught him.
"Rest a moment, Steven. You look terrible." Leon looked at him with real concern.
He understood completely. The psychological weight Steven had been carrying today was simply too much.
"You shouldn't have to see that — I'm fine. The rain probably got to me. I'll be all right in a moment. Let's go find Roxanne." Steven managed a thin smile and, after a moment, steadied on his feet.
"There's no rush, Steven. Wallace and Nemona are over there — it'll be all right."
Cynthia added her voice.
"I'll go on Metagross. Let's go." Steven shook his head.
Seeing he was set on it, the three of them went along.
Giovanni looked at the Red Orb in his hand, eyes shifting with quiet thought. Then he looked at the Poké Ball in his other hand.
And then he noticed something that made him blink.
From the seam of the Ball, a slow trickle of water was seeping out.
Was Groudon going to be all right?
He considered it, then decided not to release it just yet. Let it sit in the Ball and recover for a while.
The four of them mounted their flying Pokémon and headed for the Team Rocket base island. On the way, Steven contacted Roxanne.
After a brief hesitation, Roxanne decided to trust him, issued the withdrawal order, and had her people release the detained Team Rocket members.
By all logic, the incident should have ended there.
Except —
"Steven!! Steven, help me!!"
Wallace — bound hand and foot, sitting on the ground with an expression of profound, deeply familiar indignity, Caitlin standing over him — looked up, saw the group arriving, and his face lit up immediately.
At the sight of this scene — this completely, entirely, again scene — Steven finally, completely lost it, and his vision went dark.
Leon, Cynthia, and Giovanni all reacted at once.
"Steven!!"
"Steven!"
"Steven's passed out!!"
(End of chapter)
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