Chapter 100: Join Team Rocket — Name Your Price
Hoenn only needs Team Rocket?
Silence.
The entire Team Magma base went quiet after Mammon finished speaking.
"...Say that again."
Courtney's deep violet eyes were trembling faintly. She stared at him in disbelief.
"Wasn't I clear enough?"
Mammon raised an eyebrow, studying the purple-haired Magma admin with undisguised interest.
"Let me be more direct then. This territory — Hoenn — Team Rocket is taking it. Team Magma and Team Aqua? Garbage. Laughable organizations, laughable ideals, laughable people."
He said it all with a smile, and he meant every word.
Call them what you wanted — evil organizations, sure. But stripped of the branding, they were just radical environmentalist groups with delusions of grandeur. And not even internally consistent ones. Expand the landmass / expand the ocean — a better world for everyone! Meanwhile their actual activity consisted of stealing other people's Pokémon, hijacking submarines, and raiding research institutes.
The comedy wrote itself.
Incompetent leaders running incompetent organizations. What exactly was the point of keeping them around?
"What are you, exactly? You think you're on Team Rocket's level?"
The provocation was spectacular.
The Magma grunts were practically vibrating. This was being stepped on while completely helpless — you could hardly call it anything else.
Admin Courtney, please say something—
"How dare you—!"
Courtney's composure cracked. Her face stayed still but her chest was visibly heaving, her emotions finally spilling past the edges of her control.
She wasn't usually like this. Courtney prided herself on being logical, precise, detached. Before Team Magma, she'd been a scientist — someone who only caught fire for things that genuinely interested her. Maxie's vision of a world with more land had been exactly that kind of thing. She'd followed him with absolute conviction.
And now this person was standing in her base, telling her that her organization and everything in it was a joke.
"You call Team Magma garbage — let's see what Team Rocket can actually do!"
"Pfft." Mammon made a sound that was not remotely impressed.
Courtney's expression hardened, and she hurled both Poké Balls.
A Swellow and a Ninetales materialized in front of her.
Her Camerupt and Mightyena had both been knocked out by May up on the mountain. These were what she had left.
The two Pokémon had barely appeared before a pale blue light closed around them.
They struggled. It didn't matter.
Controlled Psychic. But — when?
Courtney's eyes snapped to the armored Pokémon standing behind the boy.
Armored Mewtwo flicked a single finger.
Swellow and Ninetales shot backward and drove straight into the wall with a sound like a thunderclap. They stayed there, embedded.
"That's it?" Mammon raised an eyebrow.
Courtney stood frozen, staring at her Pokémon.
How. How is something that strong—
The grunts who'd watched their own admin get one-shot fell into a collective stupor.
"This level of strength and you call yourselves a criminal organization." Mammon shook his head slowly. "Embarrassing."
Courtney pressed her lips together. She wanted to say something. She had nothing.
"Strictly speaking, I should send all of you to a mine," Mammon continued, unbothered.
Caitlin guided a chair over with her psychic. Mammon caught it, sat down, crossed his legs, and surveyed the room like someone who owned it.
"But I'm a generous person."
He let his gaze travel over the assembled grunts — dozens of them, all huddled together — and finally settled on one figure in particular. A girl with short black hair, wearing a uniform that wasn't quite standard Magma issue. He looked at her for a moment, and the corner of his mouth curved slightly.
"You're all standing at a fork in the road. Follow Team Magma and you're heading nowhere — no future, nothing. Or you choose differently."
He let that land.
"Anyone who wants to join Team Rocket, move to my left. Anyone who doesn't, move to my right. Choose."
The room froze. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed.
"Did everyone go deaf?" Gladion's voice came out flat and cutting. His gaze swept the room like a scythe. "Or do you need help deciding?"
That did it.
"Lord! I want to join Team Rocket!"
"I've always thought Magma was going nowhere — Team Rocket, let's GO!"
"I was literally born to be in Team Rocket!"
"The better opportunity is obvious — Team Rocket is the real deal, yo!"
The room scrambled left. More than nine out of ten of them, without much hesitation.
They were just regular grunts, after all. Their loyalty to Team Magma had never been ideological. Defecting while their own admin was still standing there was admittedly a little awkward — but compared to personal safety, compared to getting shipped to a mine, defection felt entirely reasonable.
Besides. Team Rocket clearly had its act together. That counted for something.
"..."
Courtney watched more than ninety percent of her subordinates switch sides. The few who were still deciding were watching her nervously, trying to gauge her reaction.
She tilted her head.
She was alone.
She had, in the space of a few minutes, become completely and utterly alone.
Within a few more minutes, with Silvally and Umbreon providing the appropriate ambient pressure, the count was effectively unanimous. The only one left at Courtney's side was a girl in a black fitted top, hot pants, and a hooded cape.
"Admin Courtney." The girl leaned close and spoke under her breath, her expression completely unrattled — a bright, fearless grin that hadn't moved this entire time. "The situation's bad right now. Why don't we play along for now? I've got your back, whatever happens."
Courtney felt something shift.
She remembered this girl vaguely. Shelly, she thought — no, Shelly was Aqua. This one had only joined recently. Her name was... Kagura.
She hadn't expected Kagura to stay calm through all of this.
Courtney thought it over carefully.
Then she raised her hand.
"I surrender."
She wasn't walking out of this base any other way, and that was plain. Besides — these three had genuinely caught her interest. They were extraordinary. Were there more like this in Team Rocket?
"Excellent. Welcome, everyone." Mammon gave a satisfied clap. "You've all made the smart choice. I don't think you'll regret it."
He stood.
"Team Rocket doesn't deal in inflated promises or empty ideology. We take territory. We make money. We live well. We accumulate power. That's it."
This was, he felt, Team Rocket's fundamental advantage over every other criminal organization. From Giovanni onward, Team Rocket had always kept its eye on what was real — using Pokémon as a means to profit and control, without dressing it up in a costume.
He'd trimmed some of the more inhumane elements from the operation, but the core remained intact. Playing dirty was fine. Having no floor at all was not. His floor wasn't especially high — but it was there.
At least I'm not a complete animal.
Courtney's expression stayed neutral. Empty ideology? Was that what Maxie's vision was?
She turned that over in silence.
"Gladion, take the new intake — get a headcount and process them. You two." Mammon pointed at Courtney and the girl in the cape. "Come with me."
He left the base to Gladion and led the rest of them outside with Caitlin beside him.
God, it was hot in there. Stuffy and close in a way that had been genuinely unpleasant. How Magma's people worked in that environment every day was a mystery he had no interest in solving.
"Finally." Mammon took a long breath of outside air. Not exactly crisp, but considerably better than the volcanic base interior. "How does Team Magma function in there? Build your base inside a volcano and you're practically asking for heat stroke."
He said this conversationally to no one in particular.
Courtney: "..."
Kagura gave a small, covert nod of agreement. She'd also wondered about this from day one, and had ultimately concluded the answer was simply that Team Magma's leadership had something wrong with them.
"Lord Mammon." Courtney addressed him directly, her soft voice precise and composed now that she'd made her decision. "You brought us out here for a reason?"
She was already using the honorific. She'd assessed her situation, and she'd adjusted. Professionally.
"Yes. But let's find somewhere to eat first — we can talk while we do. And change out of that uniform."
Mammon glanced at Courtney. Kagura's outfit was fine. Courtney's full Magma uniform was not going to get them through a restaurant door.
Courtney accepted this without argument. She wanted to understand what he was actually proposing.
By the time they reached Lavaridge Town, the alert had been lifted — the fighting on the mountain was over, and the police presence had scaled back. Mammon didn't spot Flannery or Officer Jenny anywhere.
They found a restaurant with a private room. Mammon ordered food and settled in.
Courtney barely touched anything. Kagura, on the other hand, had no such compunctions — she worked through the dishes with cheerful thoroughness, getting sauce on her chin, entirely unconcerned about who was sitting across the table.
Courtney genuinely could not understand her. Mammon and Caitlin were right there. How was this girl not worried at all?
"No point dancing around it." Mammon's fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the table. His attention had settled on Courtney. "You're both capable — I can put you to real use. But I'll start with you."
He leaned forward slightly.
"I don't just look down on Team Magma because of the ideology. It's the strength. Maxie's ceiling — he's not even impressive at the Elite Four tier. What's he actually capable of accomplishing?"
"Lord Maxie is—"
Courtney's flat expression had a crack in it.
Mammon waved her off before she could continue.
"Do you know how many senior executives Team Rocket has? Over ten. And the minimum bar for senior executive is Elite-Four-tier — borderline Elite-Four at the lowest."
Courtney's violet eyes contracted.
Even Kagura, who had been mid-bite, paused.
Over ten senior executives. All of them at or near Elite Four level.
What.
That's not a criminal organization. That's a private army.
Kagura was genuinely staggered. And the comparison it triggered was not flattering to Team Magma at all. No wonder he'd walked in and called them garbage to their faces.
If she were in his position, she'd have been worse.
"Follow Maxie and you have no future. That's the reality. Think it over — not that I'm giving you much of a choice in the matter."
He let Courtney sit with that and turned to Kagura.
Kagura met his eyes with the same wide, unguarded grin she'd worn the entire time. Wheat-tan skin, bright white teeth. She genuinely didn't seem afraid.
She's actually not scared at all.
Caitlin set her teacup down and studied Kagura with renewed attention. She'd been watching both women throughout. Courtney's tension was obvious and understandable. But Kagura had been relaxed from the beginning — not performing calm, actually calm. That was unusual.
"Got something for me, Lord Mammon?" Kagura asked, leaning in with cheerful directness.
"Straight to it, then." Mammon reached into his pocket and produced a badge. Gold, precision-finished, delicate engraving along the edges, and a bold capital R at the center.
He tossed it across the table.
Kagura caught it and turned it over, examining it with undisguised curiosity.
Caitlin's expression changed in an instant.
She stared at the badge. Then at Kagura.
That badge.
That was the highest-rank identification in all of Team Rocket. The mark of the organization's top tier.
Currently, only two people in the world held it: Mammon and Giovanni.
Which meant — this Kagura was—
A Champion-tier trainer?!
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