Chapter 256: Team Rocket Coming to Sinnoh Is a Blessing for Sinnoh!
"Father... Father..."
In Jubilife City, the blue-haired girl hung up the phone, thoroughly rattled. She'd grown up sheltered and pampered — she'd never faced anything like this before.
"Mother — no, wait, I can't contact Mother."
Platinum took a deep breath, immediately snuffing out the impulse to call her mom. Her father had been kidnapped by an evil organization — calling her mother wouldn't accomplish anything, just add one more person to worry. And besides, the caller had already named her specifically, telling her to come to Professor Rowan's lab directly.
Contact Cynthia!!
The thought settled, and Platinum immediately dialed Cynthia's number. Whether by fate or coincidence, she'd crossed paths with Cynthia several times on her travels — and Cynthia genuinely thought highly of her, taking real care of the younger trainer, even sharing her personal contact information with Platinum.
The call connected quickly.
"Is that Lady?" Cynthia's smooth, composed voice came through.
"Yes, Cynthia — my father's been kidnapped!" Platinum's voice came out rushed and urgent. Clearly rattled, however much she tried to force herself calm — she was still only sixteen, after all, and had always been carefully sheltered by her father, never having faced the world's uglier side.
"Calm down a moment, Lady. Who took Mr. Berlitz — Team Galactic?" Cynthia's brow furrowed, her voice soothing as she pressed for details. Who would dare something like this — kidnapping Mr. Berlitz, of all people? Thinking it through, Team Galactic seemed like the only real candidate.
"No, not Team Galactic. Cynthia, he said they were Team Rocket."
Platinum knew Team Galactic well enough — she'd run into their members several times on her travels — but she remembered clearly what name the caller had given for his own organization.
"Team Rocket?!" Something shifted sharply in Cynthia's eyes, her whole mood surging at once. So Team Rocket really has landed in Sinnoh, then, after all.
"Understood. Lady, are you still in Jubilife City? I'm on my way — don't do anything reckless."
"Yes, Cynthia. They're at Professor Rowan's lab right now."
Platinum nodded.
"Good. I'm heading there now — it'll take roughly two hours."
"Okay."
Platinum acknowledged, ending the call, and looked off toward the direction of Sandgem Town, emotions churning. She kept replaying her father's words on the phone — how he'd said what he did, for her sake...
Two hours until Cynthia arrived. But would Team Rocket's villains actually wait that long? What kind of suffering might her father face in the meantime?
The thought alone set her heart racing with worry, and she made up her mind. It was just an evil organization, after all — whatever happened, she couldn't just stand by while her father suffered.
"Garchomp!"
Platinum threw out her Garchomp, mounted it, and flew off toward Sandgem Town.
Meanwhile, back at Professor Rowan's lab.
"Care for a bite, you two?" Mammon asked, gesturing at a steaming, fragrant pot of instant noodles, addressing Mr. Berlitz and Professor Rowan.
Rowan's face twitched slightly. How to even put it — he genuinely couldn't detect a shred of urgency from these three. Hadn't Mr. Berlitz already sent Lady to alert Cynthia?
"Aren't you afraid?" Rowan finally couldn't help asking Mammon directly.
"Afraid of what?" Mammon slurped up a mouthful of steaming noodles, feigning confusion.
"Lady will certainly contact Champion Cynthia. She'll likely bring people over quite soon," Rowan said.
"Isn't that perfect, though? It's been a while since I've had some quality time with Cynthia — good timing for a new set of couple photos," Mammon said, beaming. Coming all the way into Cynthia's home turf — how could he pass up the chance to deepen their bond a little?
Caitlin said nothing at all.
"?" Rowan looked baffled, while Mr. Berlitz — sulking beside him — went momentarily still.
"Wait! You're the one who took those couple photos with Champion Cynthia?!" Mr. Berlitz exclaimed. No wonder Mammon had looked vaguely familiar to him. Back when Cynthia's couple photoshoot had first leaked, it had rocked the entire Sinnoh region — countless heartbroken Sinnoh natives had mourned collectively, since Cynthia was their region's pride and joy and the dream girl of no small number of them — beautiful and powerful in equal measure!
"That's right, Mr. Berlitz. Don't we make a good match?" Mammon asked, grinning.
"...We certainly do." Mr. Berlitz's tone came out startled, but under Mammon's gaze, he found himself nodding sincerely anyway. A good match? Purely from a photograph's perspective, sure — handsome man, gorgeous woman, undeniably. But knowing who both of them actually were, where exactly was the "match" in that?
Caitlin swept Mr. Berlitz with an icy glance, and he shrank back reflexively, baffled by the sudden chill in the air. So cold!
"Honestly, you two really don't need to be this afraid. Team Rocket is nothing like those garbage-tier evil organizations out there — we operate with genuinely elevated ideals and goals. As long as you cooperate properly, you'll both be fine," Mammon said, wiping his mouth with a napkin, addressing the two scholars at an unhurried pace. "And honestly, our coming to Sinnoh is a genuine blessing for your whole region. Those world-ending lunatics in Team Galactic — how exactly were you Sinnoh folks planning to handle that on your own?"
Mammon, of course, meant Team Galactic — a textbook case of a diseased organization run by an extreme, deranged fanatic. Believing "spirit" itself was an imperfection, that a world containing "spirit" was hopelessly broken, that any being possessing "spirit" was inherently incomplete — and then their leader, Cyrus, wanting to use Dialga and Palkia to destroy the current world and forge an entirely new one, free of "spirit."
Genuinely, unambiguously deranged extremism, that.
Team Flare's Lysandre, sure, also wanted to end the world — but at least Lysandre had a coherent reason behind it. Team Flare had started as a genuinely charitable organization under Lysandre's leadership, helping anyone in need free of charge. But eventually, Lysandre had been driven to the edge by an endless parade of shameless freeloaders exploiting his generosity, and that was what pushed him toward wanting to wipe humanity out.
Cyrus was different, though — naturally emotionally detached from birth, and combined with his exceptional intellect, he'd simply come to believe, as a matter of course, that he was above everyone else — that anyone possessing "spirit" was inherently incomplete. Even his own Team Galactic subordinates were, in his eyes, nothing more than tools — flawed, useless beings. At the end of the day, Cyrus was a man trapped entirely inside his own head, arrogantly convinced he could engineer a "perfect world."
"..." Both Rowan and Mr. Berlitz stayed silent. Clearly, in their view, Team Galactic wasn't much of a real threat — Cynthia could handle them easily enough.
Mammon didn't bother explaining further. Honestly, plenty of people across different regions shared this same blind spot. Just as Steven and Wallace had initially dismissed Team Magma and Team Aqua as no real threat — until events proved that letting them run wild would've woken Primal Kyogre and Primal Groudon, with consequences beyond reckoning.
Team Galactic was exactly the same. Right now, nobody in Sinnoh had any idea what Team Galactic was actually plotting, or that Cyrus's real target was the twin deities of time and space themselves. And the truly alarming part — Cyrus genuinely could have succeeded.
Finding the lab too stifling, Mammon led the group back outside. He pulled out a lounge chair and settled in, soaking up the sun comfortably.
About ten-odd minutes later—
"Father!" Platinum arrived, exactly as promised.
"Platinum! Didn't I tell you not to come?!" Mr. Berlitz's face went through equal parts terror and quiet emotion — he understood perfectly well why she'd shown up regardless.
"Don't worry, Father — I'll get you out of this!" Platinum declared her resolve to him. She'd assumed Team Rocket would field a much larger force, but seeing only three people here, she felt she could actually handle this — she was, after all, a genuinely powerful trainer these days.
"Oh? Miss Platinum's quite confident," Mammon said, raising an eyebrow, looking her over from head to toe.
She matched the impression precisely — blue hair, a white knit cap perched on her head, fair, delicate features. A slender, graceful figure in a one-piece dress, black thigh-high stockings reaching just above the knee, the pale stretch of skin between hemline and stocking-top cutting a striking silhouette. A genuinely lovely young woman — and as the treasured daughter of the Berlitz family, Platinum carried herself with a distinctly refined, reserved elegance. Her strength, too, was clearly considerable — Mammon eyed the Garchomp and Empoleon standing before her, both radiating serious presence. Said plenty about her caliber, right there.
"You evil Team Rocket! Why did you kidnap my father and Professor Rowan?"
Platinum reined in her emotions, demanding an answer from Mammon, the clear leader of the group.
"Your family owes us for this."
"Impossible! That's nonsense!" Platinum flatly refused to believe it. Team Rocket was a Kanto-based organization — her family had always been rooted firmly in Sinnoh. How could there possibly be any history between them and Team Rocket?
"Don't believe me? Ask your father, then." Mammon shrugged.
Platinum looked to her father. Mr. Berlitz caught her gaze, opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing — just shook his head at her. The Rayquaza Capture Project business was, in truth, a real black mark on the Berlitz family's record. But as far as Mr. Berlitz saw it, everyone who'd actually participated in that project back then was already sitting in prison — that counted as atonement enough. Team Rocket clearly disagreed, but what choice did he have?
Seeing her father not push back on the claim, Platinum began to understand — maybe there really was something to this.
"Professor Rowan really is caught up in this through no fault of his own — though don't worry, I won't harm him. Your father, though..."
"Keh heh heh~"
Shiny Gengar drifted out from the shadows, wearing a wicked grin, its claw drifting lightly across Mr. Berlitz's cheek.
Platinum's face went instantly pale.
"Please, don't hurt my father!" The treasured Berlitz daughter cried out urgently.
"No problem at all, of course not, Miss Platinum. I've actually heard about you too — the most naturally gifted young trainer the Berlitz family has ever produced," Mammon said, unhurried.
Platinum pressed her lips together, uncertain where Mammon was going with this.
"Let's make a deal, then. Agree to it, and I'll release Mr. Berlitz immediately — and I promise you besides, I won't pursue anyone else in the Berlitz family who wasn't involved in what happened back then."
"What deal?"
Not fully understanding the situation yet, Platinum still found herself answering.
"We'll settle this the trainer's way. There are three of us here — pick one to challenge. Win, and we leave immediately. But if you lose..."
Mammon let the sentence trail off, the implication clear enough without finishing it.
Platinum felt the weight of the situation settle heavily onto her shoulders, looking at the three people before her — Mammon, Caitlin, Kagura. Whichever one she picked, all three looked formidable, clearly powerful.
But Platinum understood one thing clearly: she had to win.
I'm a trainer Cynthia herself has recognized!
Platinum's grip tightened around the Poké Ball in her hand, resolve settling into her eyes.
I will win this.
(End of Chapter)
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