Team Galactic's boss Cyrus has been captured.
Every Team Galactic member he brought to the Michina Town ruins, including Admin Mars, has also been taken down.
One by one, they're marched to the base of the mountain and shoved into vans.
"Ahh I'm floating!"
Rosa throws her arms up and stretches hard.
Her tight short top lifts with the motion, exposing a strip of slim waist wrapped in long tights, the contrast with her yellow skort sharp and eye‑catching.
Even such a casual motion from this girl ends up looking suggestive enough to make people want to take a second look.
"You all did really well. You actually beat Cyrus. Didn't let me down."
Damian walks up to Rosa and the others, smiling as he praises them.
"Hehe~ just an evil‑org boss. Light work."
Rosa grins from ear to ear, humming smugly.
"In the end you still had to step in, Mr. Damian. Otherwise Cyrus might really have gotten away."
Kieran sounds a bit embarrassed.
And at the end of the day, it was five‑on‑one—they totally ganged up on him.
Sure, you don't need to play fair with evil‑org scum, but Kieran still feels like their win isn't exactly glorious.
Especially since Damian had to clean up at the end.
"No. I just added a bit of insurance. You might've been able to keep Cyrus from escaping anyway."
Damian shakes his head.
"This time you all made a big contribution. Each of you gets twenty thousand merit, and you can also pick one reward from the Item vault."
"You can cash it in now, or hold onto it for later."
He lays it out for the five of them.
He's still as generous as ever.
"Hell yeah! Long live Damian!"
"Mr. Damian, you're way too generous!"
"Damian, Damian! I love you!"
The five of them are overjoyed.
According to the mission board, capturing Cyrus is worth roughly eighty thousand merit.
Damian bumped it by another twenty and split it five ways clean.
On top of that, he's giving each of them a shot at picking an Item reward.
That really is generous.
"You little brat, you can't just throw lines like that around."
Damian can't help laughing as he looks at Rosa.
"What am I supposed to do if I take it seriously?"
She's the one who just yelled "I love you" at the top of her lungs.
"Who says I'm just throwing it around? Damian's so handsome—I really do like you. What do you think of me?"
Rosa comes right out with it, beaming until her eyes curve like crescents.
Whoa…!
Drayton and Kieran both can't help blurting in unison.
The two boys are stunned.
Isn't this… a confession?
This is definitely a confession.
Dawn is both shocked and flustered.
She's honestly never thought about romance before.
Seeing a girl her age go this hard, she really is shaken.
But…
Dawn glances at Damian.
Emmm…
She has to admit, Damian really is ridiculously handsome, and his strength is off the charts.
If you ignore "alignment," the organization and companies under his name would be enough to make him a top‑tier mogul.
Yeah, but he is Team Rocket.
Caitlin's cool gaze flicks over Rosa for a moment.
Her pale, fine features don't show a thing.
Another one trying to steal her man.
"You're great. We'll talk about it later."
Damian just laughs lightly.
"Eh?"
Rosa's clearly not satisfied.
She went all‑in on this confession; Damian better not think she's just joking.
Or is it because he's got a girlfriend already?
Rosa feels like she needs a proper showdown with Damian's girlfriend.
Only someone strong enough deserves to be Damian's girlfriend, period.
"Rosa, feelings aren't a toy. You need to really look at what's in your heart, make sure this is real and not just a spur‑of‑the‑moment impulse."
"And you know I already have a girlfriend."
Damian thinks for a moment, then speaks to Rosa.
It's not that he's suddenly gone celibate—if Rosa showed up at his door at night, he absolutely wouldn't turn her away.
But with someone like Rosa—face, figure, and talent all top‑tier—he's in no rush.
"Oh~ I get it."
So it really is because of that random girlfriend.
Rosa locks that in.
Even if her confession was gently rejected, she doesn't get discouraged.
She's sure she truly likes Damian.
And just as sure that someone as outstanding as Damian is the only man worthy of her.
She's still pissed about one thing, though.
Someone else "got there first."
Damn it.
She and Damian are obviously made for each other; they could've been each other's perfect first love and had a whole brood of kids.
Now Damian's "firsts" are all gone.
That woman's almost certainly slept with him too, right?
Has to have.
If it were her, she'd never have been able to resist either.
Aaaahhh! Damn it!
The more she imagines Damian and that woman "like this and like that" in bed, the more Rosa wants to scream.
That's the man she's set her sights on!
Forget it.
What's done is done.
She'll just treat it as the woman "helping Damian practice."
Later he'll definitely be hers.
Rosa's confidence is absolute.
She knows with Damian's standards, his girlfriend won't be bad.
But so what?
If she's that good, then come fight me!
If she doesn't end up feeling so inferior she slinks away from Damian on her own, Rosa might as well eat her own Poké Ball.
The thought clears Rosa's head.
Right.
Once Damian's girlfriend actually shows up, that's the perfect time to start her offensive.
That's the play.
"Mr. Damian, now that Cyrus and all those Team Galactic members have been captured, what are you planning to do with them?"
Dawn can't help asking.
She really is curious about this.
Unlike Rosa and the others, Dawn knows full well Damian is Team Rocket's boss.
Although… over the last stretch of time, Team Rocket really has overturned all her preconceptions about evil organizations.
She honestly thinks Team Rocket is way too legit.
So legit it barely feels like an evil org at all.
They're aggressively cracking down on Team Galactic and hunter outfits.
Sure, they're doing it to take over Sinnoh's underworld and expand their turf.
But intent or not, the facts are that Team Rocket really is eliminating evil outfits.
And Dawn's also noticed that while Team Rocket's style is domineering, they don't go around snatching other people's Pokémon or pulling straight robbery.
They're very disciplined.
That alone has flipped Dawn's worldview upside down.
She doesn't think you can really call Team Rocket an evil organization anymore.
She's even way more motivated at work now.
"As for the regular Team Galactic grunts—if they're willing to turn over a new leaf, I'm happy to give them a second chance."
Damian doesn't bother hiding it.
Absorbing Team Galactic is exactly how he plans to bulk up further.
"The company really is short‑staffed. And it makes them easier to manage, too. After being with Team Galactic, they've picked up plenty of bad habits. Even if they want to change, it'll take time and structure."
"Mr. Damian! You're incredible!"
Kieran looks at Damian with pure worship.
This is his idol.
"It's not that big a deal. It's still for the company's growth."
Damian shakes his head modestly.
"As for Team Galactic's Admins, we've got three in custody right now. Jupiter still refuses to surrender. Mars has only just been brought back. Saturn's already joined us and is currently shadowing Gladion, getting used to his new job."
Damian goes on.
Among the Admins, Mars is the most loyal to Cyrus.
In the original line, she was even willing to head into the Reverse World alone to chase after Cyrus.
Next is Jupiter.
Then Saturn and Charon.
Saturn was basically just drawn in by Cyrus's talk of a 'new world'; he never knew Cyrus's true plan.
Under Team Rocket's persuasion, Saturn has already caved and joined.
Jupiter's wavering too.
"Now that Cyrus has been caught, I'm sure Jupiter will come around soon. As for Cyrus himself…"
"That guy's got a screw loose. He's bad for company cohesion. I'm not planning to recruit him."
"I'm debating whether to send him to the mines to build roads for the Sinnoh region, or just hand him to the League and let him sit in a cell for life."
Damian's genuinely weighing it.
For him, not just anyone is welcome in Team Rocket.
Ambition is fine.
Dreams are fine.
Being obsessive is fine.
None of that is a problem in itself.
As long as you don't interfere with Team Rocket's interests, Damian doesn't care if subordinates have their own ideology.
That's why he's still willing to keep someone like Carr around.
If you really want to talk history, the Four Admins and the Three Beasts all did plenty of terrible things.
But Damian's never planned to dig into any of that.
Because back then Team Rocket was under Giovanni, and Giovanni was the one guiding the org's overall direction.
Team Rocket got labeled an evil organization precisely because of all the crap they did during Giovanni's reign.
Now, though, Team Rocket's Damian's.
Past is past.
Now is now.
Damian's ideology is very different from Giovanni's; he disdains low‑level evil.
And Carr and the others don't dare defy his will.
If they did, Damian wouldn't hesitate to "clean house."
It just so happens Damian's authority is no weaker than Giovanni's.
The Four Admins and the three original Admins are all extremely loyal.
Same for the Three Beasts.
Sird's already defected.
Carr may be surly, violent, and nasty, but he doesn't dare cross Damian.
Arrogant he may be; stupid he is not.
The organization's got a new king, and if he doesn't listen, he'll end up like Vicious.
And Vicious is someone he personally disposed of.
The people Damian's recruited himself are even simpler—they're fanatically loyal to Damian.
Team Rocket runs on Damian's word.
He's not remotely worried about subordinates forming factions.
As long as they don't hurt Team Rocket's bottom line, he doesn't care.
But he's not going to take in just anyone.
People who can't read the room, extremists whose brains are truly broken—he wants nothing to do with them.
He's talking about Ghetsis and Cyrus.
Especially Cyrus.
"Send him to the mines! Handing him to the League would be way too cheap for him!"
Rosa's eyes light up; she sounds downright excited.
The idea of the Team Galactic boss working a pickaxe is just too fun.
Emmm…
Dawn and the other three trade looks but don't say anything.
Even they think there's no saving someone like Cyrus.
"All right. Mines it is."
Damian doesn't care either way.
He even owns a mining company in Sinnoh.
It exists specifically for people like Cyrus—and all the Team Galactic and Pokémon hunter types who refuse to join Team Rocket.
Free labor.
No reason not to use it.
At least it lets them contribute something of value.
And so—
Team Galactic's boss, the man who wanted to create a new world, Cyrus, becomes an excellent miner.
Up at dawn and back at dusk, working himself half to death, he no longer has the time or headspace to ponder the question of what a "perfect human" is.
Because the first thing he does after dragging himself back to his narrow little bed every day—
Is pass out face‑first and snore like thunder.
Yeah.
Keep him busy enough and he'll have no time to contemplate life.
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