Chapter 330: Team Rocket's Serena Enters! This Is the Best of Times!
On the bench outside the fashion boutique, Mammon and Serena sat sipping their juice, chatting easily.
Serena genuinely enjoyed this relaxed atmosphere. Mr. Mammon was clearly someone important — but he carried himself without a trace of pretension, treating her as an equal. And honestly, credit where it's due — Mr. Mammon really was handsome.
His striking, refined features, that black tousled hair, his impeccable fashion sense, and that bright, clean-cut boyish charm all made Mammon absolutely magnetic — turning heads wherever he went, impossible not to notice.
Passersby couldn't help but glance twice, and the appreciative, envious looks from other girls on the street left Serena feeling more than a little pleased herself. Sure, she knew she and Mr. Mammon were nothing more than ordinary friends — but strangers wouldn't necessarily read it that way, walking alongside a guy who looked like this.
"Let me think — where should I even start."
Mammon took a sip of his watermelon juice, gathering his thoughts.
"First off — if you join Team Rocket, you'll receive a monthly salary befitting your position. Every member gets one; think of it like a paycheck."
"The specific pay tier gets set based on your skill level and abilities — someone like you, Serena, for instance."
"If you're willing to join Team Rocket, I could offer you a Senior Officer position right away — that's a senior management role within the organization. You'd draw ¥100,000 a month from the org as your base salary."
"That much?!"
Serena's big eyes widened slightly at that. ¥100,000 a month??
Oh my gosh. How many trainers would I have to beat in prize money to hit that kind of number? An Ultra Ball alone costs ¥1,200!
No wonder Caitlin and Platinum had so much money.
"That much? Honestly, it's not that much, Serena. You have to understand — capable people never actually worry about money, only about how much of it they end up with."
Mammon couldn't help a small laugh. Still just a young girl at the end of the day.
"For people like us, money's really just a number. Give it some time after you join the organization, and you'll come to understand that too."
Serena pressed her lips together. Was that really true?
"Honestly, I have a lot of confidence in your potential — I genuinely believe your future achievements won't fall short of Dawn's or Caitlin's."
Mammon looked at Serena. If money alone could keep her here, he'd have no qualms about throwing as much of it as necessary at the problem. But Mammon understood perfectly well that this wasn't a realistic solution.
For someone like Serena, she surely cared about other things far more.
"I've still got a long way to go before I'm on their level," Serena said, with a rare touch of bashfulness.
Which wasn't false modesty, either — she'd been decisively, thoroughly defeated by Platinum just the day before. As for Caitlin... well, Dawn had mentioned to her last night that Caitlin's own strength as a specialized Psychic-type trainer was already Champion-caliber. That much was practically a given at this point.
"No need to be discouraged, Serena. Your potential is no less than theirs — you just need a better environment to grow in."
"And that's actually my second point."
Mammon smiled faintly and continued.
"Serena, what's your dream?"
"My dream... right now, my immediate goal is to win the Lumiose Conference."
"And after that?" Mammon pressed.
"If I can manage it, I want to challenge the Elite Four and Miss Diantha too, and become Kalos's Champion."
"A genuinely ambitious goal — aiming for regional Champion in your very first year out. I fully support that." Mammon praised her.
Serena pressed her lips together, her big eyes reflecting Mammon's face.
If she'd said that to anyone else, it probably would've earned her nothing more than a joke or a hollow word of encouragement — really, at bottom, most people just didn't believe a rookie fresh off her first journey could ever topple Diantha.
But why not, exactly?
Serena genuinely refused to accept that reasoning — why should anyone assume she couldn't do it before she'd even tried?
Not that it was especially surprising, though. That was just the narrow-mindedness ordinary people tended to have.
Regional Champion represented the strongest trainer in an entire region — only the region's single strongest trainer earned that title.
And right now, the strongest in all of Kalos was Diantha.
Serena, meanwhile, was just a rookie who'd barely picked up her starter Pokémon and set out on her journey. Of course an ordinary person would assume it was impossible for her.
"Given your talent and your growth rate, I genuinely think beating Diantha by the end of the year is well within reach for you." Mammon said with a smile.
Yeah — in Mammon's own assessment, Diantha, Wallace, and Alder were, honestly, the three weakest regional Champions across every region. Alder had lost his fighting spirit after his ace died young. Wallace's Water-type team struggled on regulation battlefields, and his core lineup was inherently weak to begin with. As for Diantha — not much to say there either, genuinely just not that strong.
"Really? You genuinely think that, Mr. Mammon?"
Serena's eyes lit up, pleasantly surprised.
"Yeah. I mean, you're already nearly Champion-caliber yourself, aren't you?" Mammon noticed the girl's excitement and nodded with a smile.
Serena bit her soft pink lip, a genuinely stunning smile spreading across her lovely face.
Even Mammon had to admit — Serena's smile really was gorgeous. Honestly, Serena really was a striking beauty, especially given how much she loved fashion and clearly knew how to dress herself well. And her figure ranked pretty highly even among all the game's various female protagonists.
"But I have to tell you something important, Serena — even once you become Champion, you still won't have reached the summit. This world is genuinely vast, and there's no shortage of powerful trainers out there."
"And how to put it — I think our generation might really be witnessing the dawn of an entirely new era. There are just so many prodigies alive right now."
Mammon said softly, reflecting.
"Other regions, you mean?" Serena asked, curious.
"That's right, Serena. You've probably sensed it yourself already — you really are a prodigy, one of those genuinely rare, once-in-a-generation trainer talents, wouldn't you say?"
"..."
Serena tucked a loose strand of flaxen hair behind her ear, a little bashful. Plenty of people had marveled at her talent before — praised her, complimented her, even had a few Gym Leaders call her "Kalos's future" and things along those lines.
But...
Well, yesterday Platinum had knocked some sense into her.
"But you might not believe this — the truth is, trainers with talent equal to yours are popping up constantly, all across every region."
Serena blinked, startled.
"You've already met one from Sinnoh — Dawn, of course. Kanto's got at least four that I know of. Hoenn's got one. Unova's got two or three. Alola's got one or two. Paldea's got two as well."
"As for Galar, I haven't been there myself yet, but I'd bet there's at least one or two there too."
Mammon said this with total confidence. Sure, he hadn't actually visited Paldea or Galar yet — but Nemona was clearly one such prodigy, and Blue was surely another. As for Galar, there really were quite a few gifted young talents there too.
Not to mention Victor as the protagonist himself — his rivals were nothing to sneeze at either: Leon's own younger brother Hop, the boy Bede raised and adopted by Rose, and Spikemuth Gym Leader Piers's younger sister Marnie.
You could honestly say all three of those rivals carried genuine Champion-caliber potential — especially Hop, who, as one of the human partners chosen by one of the Sword/Shield dual kings later in the game, spent the early-to-mid game struggling, but genuinely came into his own late — arguably the strongest of the three rivals by the endgame.
"That... many?"
Serena stared, shocked, murmuring the words unconsciously.
She'd assumed she was something special... but apparently, she really wasn't quite as special as she'd thought after all.
All those Gym Leaders, and Diantha herself, were basically LIARS?!
Calling her a once-in-a-century prodigy — turns out every region gets a once-in-a-century prodigy, apparently. And Kanto had... four?? At LEAST four??
"So really, even once you become regional Champion, your career as a trainer will really only just be getting started, right? Because you'll eventually want to step onto the world stage too, won't you?"
"This truly is the best of times we could be living in!"
"Don't you think so, Serena?"
Mammon tilted his head slightly, gently scratching Jirachi's little belly.
Yeah — as far as Mammon was concerned, an era this rich with talent, this many bright flowers blooming all at once, really was the best kind of era there could be. After all, one person's path to becoming the strongest inevitably loses something without some genuinely formidable rivals standing in the way.
"Yes! That's exactly... what I want!"
At that, a fierce fire seemed to blaze up in Serena's eyes. Mr. Mammon was right.
So what if every region had its own prodigies? It was precisely because they existed that being "the strongest" was actually worth fighting for!
"Good. That's the spirit."
Mammon nodded, satisfied, seeing this.
"So let me explain something, Serena — do you know where the gap between you and Dawn actually comes from right now?"
"The environment you're in isn't good enough to accelerate your growth!"
Mammon put it bluntly, cutting straight to the heart of it.
"Environment?" Serena seemed to be starting to understand.
"That's right. You need a better growth environment, more worthy opponents, and better resources."
"And Team Rocket can provide all of that."
Mammon said with a smile.
Serena looked thoughtful.
"A trainer can absolutely grow stronger through solitary, head-down training — but that pace of growth surely isn't going to satisfy someone like you, Serena."
"Real, hands-on battle experience is a far more effective catalyst for both you and your team. Wiping out dark organizations and their powerful trainers alike nets you huge gains — and the organization also has plenty of Champion-caliber trainers and Elite-Four-caliber senior executives you could train and spar against directly."
"When it comes to team composition and tactical design, you could work through that together with them and improve side by side. And as for the resources your Pokémon need to grow, you'd be able to request those from within the organization too."
Everything Mammon was describing was, without question, genuinely tempting to Serena.
She was starting to understand now what Dawn had meant when she'd said Mammon helped her grow stronger.
Oh my god.
Elite mentorship. Sparring against genuinely strong opponents. Real battle experience to sharpen her. Even collaborative discussion on team composition and tactics. And on top of all that, all kinds of growth resources provided directly by the organization.
Holy crap! No wonder Dawn's this much stronger than me. Going it alone, training myself half to death on my own — there's just no way I could ever match that.
"Also — for a genuinely talented trainer like you, Serena, if you join the organization, I'd be willing to hand over an Ultra Beast with excellent innate potential to you, free of charge."
An Ultra Beast?!
Serena's mind immediately jumped back to that terrifyingly strong Pheromosa Dawn had used yesterday. Just for joining??
"And finally — the organization owns two enormous ranches, both housing all kinds of excellent Pokémon, including Legendary Pokémon among them. You can redeem your merit points for a chance to catch them yourself."
Mammon pulled out his phone and opened up the app's Pokémon redemption page.
Zapdos. Landorus. Thundurus. And more.
Serena's breathing quickened involuntarily.
"Serena, I'll let you in on something — Dawn wasn't even close to going all-out yesterday. She's still got Entei in her lineup as another ace."
"So if you want to beat Dawn, you're going to need a genuinely stronger core lineup than you have right now. Your team really does need reinforcing."
This wasn't even really manipulation on Mammon's part, honestly — the truth was, with Serena's current lineup, she could train for another ten years and still likely never manage to beat Platinum.
Because "hard work" is relative, after all. Serena working hard doesn't mean Platinum's just going to stand still and wait for her to catch up. Not a chance.
Without reinforcing her team, Serena would never beat Dawn — not in her entire lifetime.
Entei...
Serena fell silent. One of Ho-Oh's own legendary guardian trio — and Dawn had actually caught it?
But looking at all the Pokémon listed on Team Rocket's app redemption page, suddenly none of it seemed all that surprising anymore.
"So let me ask you now, Serena — will you join Team Rocket?"
"I will!"
The girl from Vaniville Town answered without a moment's hesitation!
Team Rocket really was where she belonged, yo!
(End of chapter)
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