Chapter 281: Mei Confesses to Mammon! Send Charon Off to the Mines!
Team Galactic's boss, Charon, had been taken prisoner. Along with every single Galactic member he'd brought to the Michina Ruins — including his commander Mars — all of them captured. One by one, they were marched down the mountain and loaded into vans.
"Ahh~ so tired~!"
Mei raised both arms in a great stretch, her fitted top riding up with the motion to reveal the slender waist beneath her long stockings, a striking contrast against her yellow culottes. Even something as unconscious as this stretch gave the girl an undeniable air of allure, the kind that made people want to look twice.
"You all did great — you really did take down Charon. Didn't disappoint me at all."
Mammon walked up to the five of them, praising them with a smile.
"Heh heh~ some evil-organization boss, easy pickings." Mei beamed, humming with satisfaction.
"Though you were the one who finished it, Mr. Mammon. If not for you, Charon might have gotten away," Wulin said, a little sheepish — after all, it had technically been five against one, numbers doing the heavy lifting against a single opponent. Sure, there was no need to play fair with evil-organization members, but Wulin still felt like their win hadn't been entirely clean. Especially with Mammon stepping in to close things out at the end.
"No, I just added the finishing touch. You all probably could have held onto him without me," Mammon said, shaking his head.
"You all did excellent work this round — twenty thousand merit points each as a bonus, and each of you can also pick a reward from the item stockpile."
"You can use it now, or save it for later."
Mammon told the five of them, as generous as ever.
"Yes! Long live Mammon!"
"Mr. Mammon, you're way too generous!"
"Mammon, Mammon! I love you!"
All five of them lit up with delight. Per the mission board, catching Charon should have paid out roughly eighty thousand merit points on its own — and Mammon had tacked on an extra twenty thousand for the group, splitting evenly, plus a free item pick each. Genuinely generous.
"Hey now, girl, you can't just say things like that carelessly — what if I took it seriously?"
Mammon laughed, glancing over at Mei with amusement. It had, after all, been the twin-bun girl who'd just shouted "I love you" — and loudly, too.
"I'm not saying it carelessly at all. You're so handsome, Mammon, I really do like you. What do you think of me?"
Mei said it without a trace of embarrassment, her eyes curving into crescent moons with her grin.
Whoa!!!
Dulse and Wulin both let out an involuntary "whoa," both boys utterly stunned. Was that— was that a confession?! That was definitely a confession!
Platinum looked equally startled, and a little flushed — she genuinely hadn't given much thought to romance herself, and seeing a girl her own age go for it this boldly left her honestly shaken.
But...
Platinum glanced at Mammon. Ummm...
It had to be said — Mammon really was extraordinarily good-looking, and his strength was frankly frightening. Setting aside the nature of it, the sheer scale of the organization and company under his name would've been enough to make him one of the top entrepreneurs anywhere. Well — except it was Team Rocket.
Caitlin shot Mei a cold look, her pristine, elegant face utterly expressionless. Another one trying to steal her man.
"That's sweet. We'll see, down the road," Mammon said with an easy laugh.
"Eh?"
Mei looked a bit put out at that. She'd just confessed this boldly, and Mammon thought she was joking around? Or was it because of his girlfriend? Mei figured she really ought to have a proper showdown with whoever this girlfriend was — only someone strong deserved to be Mammon's girlfriend, yo!!
"Mei, feelings aren't something to play around with. You should really think carefully about what you actually feel — whether it's real affection, or just a passing impulse."
"And you already know — I have a girlfriend."
Mammon thought it over before saying so to her. Not that he'd suddenly turned virtuous or anything — if Mei genuinely showed up at his door some night, he'd absolutely not turn her away. But for someone with Mei's looks and figure, a genuine prodigy on every front, he wasn't in any rush.
"Oh~ I see."
So it really is because of that mysterious girlfriend after all. Mei settled that much in her mind. Even though her confession had just been gently turned down, she wasn't discouraged in the slightest. She was sure of it — she really did like Mammon, and someone this exceptional was clearly the only acceptable choice for her future partner.
Still, she couldn't help but feel put out — someone had already beaten her to the punch with Mammon. Ugh! They should have been a match made in heaven, each other's perfect first love, popping out a whole litter of babies together someday. And now Mammon's first time was already gone — that woman had definitely slept with him already, hadn't she? Obviously. If it were her, she wouldn't have been able to resist either.
Argh! Damn it!
Just picturing Mammon and that woman together in bed made Mei want to scream. He's the man I've got my eye on!!
Well, fine — what's done is done. She'd just consider it Mammon getting some practice in with that other woman first. Eventually, he'd definitely be hers!
Mei felt thoroughly confident about it — given Mammon's standards, his girlfriend was surely no pushover either. But so what? Bring it on — she'd take her on any day! If she didn't beat the woman so thoroughly that she slunk away from Mammon in shame, she'd eat her own Poké Ball on the spot!
Mei's outlook brightened considerably. Right — once Mammon's girlfriend actually showed up, that would be the perfect moment to launch her offensive. That was the plan!
"Mr. Mammon, now that Charon and all these Galactic members have been captured, what are you planning to do with them?"
Platinum asked, curious. She really was interested in the answer — unlike the others, she was well aware Mammon was Team Rocket's boss.
Though... over the course of this whole stretch of time, Team Rocket had genuinely upended Platinum's preconceptions about evil organizations. Because honestly? She'd come to think Team Rocket was almost too professionally run — barely recognizable as an evil organization at all. Actively taking down Team Galactic and the poachers — sure, technically just to seize control of Sinnoh's underworld and expand their territory — but regardless of motive, the plain fact was Team Rocket really was eliminating evil organizations as it went.
And Platinum had also noticed that, for all their high-handedness, Team Rocket never engaged in outright banditry like stealing other people's Pokémon. Genuinely disciplined! It had honestly shifted her whole worldview quite a bit. She was starting to feel like Team Rocket couldn't really even be called an "evil organization" anymore — if anything, it had noticeably boosted her own motivation at work.
"The ordinary Galactic members — if they're willing to genuinely reform, I'm happy to give them a second chance."
Mammon didn't hide anything. Absorbing Team Galactic's rank and file was, after all, exactly how he grew his own strength.
"The company's still short on manpower as it is. This way it's easier to keep them properly managed too — they were probably exposed to plenty of bad habits under Team Galactic. Even if they genuinely want to change, that's going to take time and proper oversight."
"Mr. Mammon! You're truly admirable!"
Wulin looked at him with open reverence — this was exactly the kind of person he wanted to be.
"Not that impressive, really. It's mostly just for the company's growth," Mammon said, shaking his head with modesty.
"As for the executives, we've got three so far. Jupiter's still refusing to surrender. Mars just got brought in. And Saturn's already come around — he's currently shadowing Gladion to get up to speed on his new role."
Mammon explained. Among Team Galactic's commanders, Mars had always been the most loyal to Charon — in the original story, she'd even been willing to venture into the Distortion World itself to find him. Jupiter came next in loyalty, followed by Saturn and Cyrus. Saturn, in truth, had only ever been drawn in by Charon's talk of a "new world" — he'd had no idea what Charon's actual plan really involved. And now, under Team Rocket's recruitment efforts, Saturn had already agreed to defect, with Jupiter reportedly still wavering.
"With Charon captured now, Jupiter will probably come around soon enough too. As for Charon himself..."
"That man's got a screw loose in a way that's genuinely bad for company morale. I'm not planning to bring him on. Still deciding whether to put him to work mining and road-building as a contribution to Sinnoh, or just hand him over to the League and let him rot in prison for the rest of his life."
Mammon mused it over, genuinely weighing the decision seriously. For Mammon, Team Rocket wasn't a place that would take just anyone. Ambition — fine. Big dreams — fine. Even a certain amount of fanaticism — also fine. None of that was really a dealbreaker on its own. As long as it didn't hurt Team Rocket's interests, Mammon didn't mind his subordinates having minds of their own — even Chakra, he was perfectly happy to keep around.
If you really wanted to nitpick, the Four Officers and the Three Beasts had all done plenty of unsavory things in the past — but Mammon had never once held that against them. Because, at the end of the day, Team Rocket back then had been under Giovanni's rule, its direction shaped entirely by him. Team Rocket had earned its reputation as an evil organization precisely because of what it got up to during that era.
But Team Rocket now belonged to Mammon. The past was the past; the present was its own thing. Mammon's philosophy was very different from Giovanni's — he had zero interest in petty, low-level villainy — and none of his subordinates, Chakra included, dared cross him, or Mammon wouldn't hesitate to clean house.
And clearly, Mammon's authority was every bit a match for Giovanni's own. The Four Officers, the Three Executives, all fiercely loyal — same with the Three Beasts. Sham had already defected to him personally. Chakra, for all his volatile, prickly temperament, still wouldn't dare defy him — Chakra was arrogant, not stupid, and with the organization under new leadership now, disobedience would earn him the same fate Bishasu had once gotten — a fate Chakra himself had personally carried out, no less.
As for the people Mammon had recruited himself — needless to say, every one of them was a die-hard loyalist.
So Team Rocket, in the end, ran entirely on Mammon's word — and he wasn't remotely worried about factions forming under him, as long as the organization's bottom line stayed intact, he simply didn't care. But there were limits on who he'd take in: people who couldn't read the room, and true extremists lost in their own delusions, he had absolutely no use for.
Which meant people like Ghetsis. And Charon most of all.
"Send him off to mine!" Mei's eyes lit up, offering the suggestion with real excitement. "Handing him over to the League is way too easy on him!"
The boss of Team Galactic, reduced to mining — the thought alone was thrilling.
Umm...
Platinum and the other three exchanged glances but didn't say much. Even they figured someone as much of an extremist as Charon was probably beyond saving.
"Sure, off to the mines it is." Mammon shrugged, unbothered. He owned a mining company in Sinnoh specifically set up for exactly this purpose — for Charon, and for any other Team Galactic members or Pokémon poachers who refused to defect to Rocket. Free labor was free labor, no sense letting it go to waste — and it let them make themselves useful, in a manner of speaking.
And so it was that Charon — boss of Team Galactic, would-be architect of a new world — became, from that day forward, a diligent, hardworking miner. Up before dawn, home well after dark, worked half to death every single day — he simply didn't have the energy left to ponder what a "perfect world" might look like anymore. Because the first thing he did every day, the moment he collapsed onto his cot after a full shift, was pass out cold, snoring like thunder.
Well. Keep the man busy enough, and he'll have no time left to contemplate the meaning of life.
(End of Chapter)
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