Chapter 349: "This Is OUR Kalos — Protected by Team Rocket!"
"Looks like you've calmed down a bit."
Mammon watched Zygarde Z1 settle, genuinely pleased, and put the Azure Flute away.
Z1 stayed silent, eyeing Mammon with a mix of suspicion and uncertainty — no question about it, that had genuinely been Arceus's own aura of Creation.
Which meant this human had somehow earned Arceus's own recognition...
Being acknowledged by Arceus at all surely meant there was something genuinely special about this human.
So Z1 decided to give him a chance to explain himself — after all, better safe than dredging up a fight with the wrong party over a misunderstanding, right?
Yeah. Fair enough.
"Mewtwo, let it down."
Mammon called over to Mega Mewtwo Y.
Mega Mewtwo Y lowered its arm, releasing the psychic hold restraining Z1. Z1 dropped back to the ground, immediately leaping in front of Z2, eyeing Mammon warily.
"No need to look at me so guardedly. I won't hurt your other half."
"The moment I got here, I saw you attacking it!"
Z1 instinctively bared its teeth and hissed again, clearly still furious over that exact point.
"I understand your concern for your other half, but hissing at me constantly like this is a bit rude, don't you think?"
Mammon raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, I attacked it — but did you ever stop to consider why? Your other half's negative emotions had spiraled completely out of control, and on top of that, it was being manipulated by genuinely evil humans. If I hadn't brought it down, what would have happened to this city and its innocent people?"
"..." Z1 fell silent.
"And besides, this counts as rescuing it from the hands of evil people too, doesn't it?"
"But that still means it was humans who hurt it in the first place!"
Z1 remained thoroughly unconvinced — at the end of the day, hadn't it still been humans who'd hurt Z2?
"That's true. But regardless of species, there will always be genuinely evil individuals within it. As the sentinel of ecological order, you of all Pokémon should understand that clearly."
Mammon didn't deny it — Team Flare really had hurt Z2, that much was true.
"I've already sent people to capture the humans responsible for hurting your other half. All of them will pay the price for this — spending the rest of their lives making up for their sins."
"What do you think, Zygarde? Is that acceptable to you?"
Seeing Z1 hadn't responded yet, and still seeming visibly unsatisfied.
"If you feel that's not enough, tell me what solution you'd prefer — I could hand them over to you directly. Would you like to kill them yourself?"
Mammon asked again.
Z1 glanced over at Z2, still unconscious. Its other half.
Zygarde was a genuinely remarkable species of Pokémon — its innate purpose was to safeguard the ecosystem's order, which meant it could naturally fragment its own body into countless forms. It could spread its body out as countless individual cells across a wide area, allowing it to monitor the ecosystem broadly — though those scattered cells carried no independent consciousness of their own.
They existed solely to observe, and once the ecosystem's order was genuinely disrupted, the Core would gather those cells back together, reforming into Zygarde proper to correct whatever had gone wrong.
Zygarde's Cores — Z1 and Z2 — were, at their heart, one single being. Sure, each carried its own separate consciousness, but fundamentally, they truly were one and the same.
Seeing "itself" reduced to such a pitiful state — how could Z1 not be furious?
But now that it had settled down, Z1 understood well enough that none of this could really be blamed on Mammon.
Yeah — of course, the main deciding factor here was that this particular human happened to be someone acknowledged and gifted by Arceus itself. Even if Z1 genuinely wanted to vent its fury somewhere, there was no reasonable grounds for directing it at this man specifically.
As for killing those responsible?
What good would that actually do? For Zygarde, the ones it truly wished to punish weren't just the immediate perpetrators.
"Out of respect for you, I'll let this pass for now. But if there's a next time, I won't spare the humans on this land!"
If Mammon hadn't shown up, Z1 would absolutely have reformed into Complete Forme and unleashed a proper rampage. Reducing its other half to this pitiful state — did they honestly think Zygarde was something to be trifled with?
"Understood. If there's a next time, I won't get involved," Mammon nodded.
Z1 departed with Z2 in tow, its Cell Forme carrying Z2 nimbly through a series of leaps, quickly vanishing from Mammon's sight.
Watching it go, Mammon shook his head. He'd originally been hoping to build a decent relationship with Zygarde, but clearly, given how worked up it currently was, this hadn't exactly been the right moment for it.
"That should just about wrap things up, Diantha. I've kept my end of the deal."
Mammon checked his phone — Platinum and the others had also wrapped up their end of things.
"Yeah. Thank you," Diantha nodded.
Then she turned to look back at the devastated city and let out a deep, heavy sigh.
Was there really any winner in this fight at all?
Diantha couldn't help asking herself that. Had they won? What exactly had they won, in the end? Lumiose City had survived, sure, but with more than half the city reduced to ruins, rebuilding would take considerable time. And on top of that, countless people had been injured, terrified, traumatized.
Zygarde Z2 had been hurt through no fault of its own, forcibly manipulated and reawakened, and Z1 had come dangerously close to unleashing retaliation against all of humanity because of it.
If it hadn't been for Mammon, the entirety of Lumiose City might well have been wiped clean off the map by Zygarde.
"No need to get so sentimental about it. Look at the bright side — at least this extremist organization got exposed and taken down for good."
Mammon patted Diantha's rounded shoulder, offering a comforting smile.
"Otherwise, Lysandre would've stayed hidden, and who knows what kind of larger disaster he might've unleashed down the road."
"Yeah." Diantha nodded, taking a deep breath.
Mammon was right — an extremist, fanatical organization like Team Flare really was a genuinely terrifying thing. Honestly, it was fortunate he'd exposed himself prematurely — otherwise, the losses could have ended up far, far worse.
The crisis had, at last, been fully resolved. A scattered handful of Team Flare members were still resisting somewhere in the city, but they were all quickly rounded up and subdued as well.
"Mammon, Mammon~!"
A girl's clear voice rang out loudly. Mammon glanced to his left.
Mei and the others came jogging over.
"Good work, everyone. Looks like nobody's hurt, that's great."
Mammon offered them a warm smile.
"Heheh~ Mammon, all together, we caught seven Team Flare executives, including Lysandre himself!"
Mei grinned, thoroughly pleased with herself, chin held proudly high.
"Oh? Excellent work — thanks to all of you, Team Flare's evil scheme was stopped before it could succeed."
"We protected this city! We protected the entirety of Kalos!"
Mammon nodded, thoroughly satisfied.
"Now, everyone, let's keep helping maintain order in the city — and there's all this vegetation that still needs clearing out too."
"Otherwise, Lumiose City won't be livable at all."
Mammon glanced around at the massive, twisted plant growth still threaded through building walls all around them — remnants left behind by the corrupted Zygarde.
Come to think of it, it really was strange — Zygarde, meant to safeguard ecological order, having the ability to control plant life so directly? Zygarde itself was Dragon/Ground typed, after all — was this tied to its signature Aura Break ability somehow? Or maybe just the broader concept of "ecology" itself?
Not that it especially mattered right now, though. Complete Forme Zygarde looked genuinely impressive, sure, but actually catching it was clearly going to be a real challenge — after everything that had just happened, both Z1 and Z2's goodwill toward humans had dropped to essentially nothing.
"Okay, okay, let's go help out."
Hearing that, Platinum and the others were all genuinely motivated — this was, after all, a good deed.
"Sure. I've already cleared it with Diantha, go ahead."
Mammon nodded with a smile.
"Lysandre, Malva, Aliana, Bryony, Mable, Celosia, Alan — so it's confirmed, then, Xerosic isn't among them."
Mammon narrowed his eyes slightly. Alan being among the captured did catch him a little off guard.
Not that it especially mattered, though — mostly he was thinking back to the anime, where Alan had been Ash's rival, and in the actual Lumiose Conference finals, Ash-Greninja had lost to Alan's own Mega Charizard X — a genuinely unresolved sore spot for him, even watching it years ago.
Not sure whether this world would ever give him the chance to see Ash and Alan actually face off — but Mammon figured, in this particular continuity, Ash probably wouldn't have too much trouble beating Alan. Alan's talent was genuinely solid, sure — but only "solid." Compared against the real "monsters," he simply didn't measure up.
Platinum and the others set off ahead of him, heading to help the League maintain order and clear out the plant growth Zygarde had left behind.
Good move, honestly — it would only deepen the public's positive impression of Team Rocket. After all, without Team Rocket's involvement, the Kalos League alone trying to bring down Team Flare? That would genuinely have been an uphill battle.
Team Rocket really was the hero who'd saved Lumiose City.
"Should we go check on the prisoners?"
Caitlin asked Mammon.
"No rush. There's somewhere else we need to go first."
Mammon shook his head. Lysandre and the rest of the prisoners had all been transported away and locked up by Team Rocket already, but Mammon wasn't in any hurry about that.
Right now, something else took priority.
—
Geosenge Town.
By now, hardly any residents remained in Geosenge Town — the entire town had been occupied by a Team Flare squad.
At the center of town, a colossal machine stood tall, shaped like a blooming flower.
This was the Ultimate Weapon.
"Damn it! The boss and everyone else got captured — did we actually fail?"
Inside a secret base near Geosenge Town, a burly man in an orange Team Flare uniform gritted his teeth.
This was Xerosic — currently Team Flare's sole surviving executive, and the only male scientist among Team Flare's leadership.
Once the operation had officially launched, he'd made his way to Geosenge Town to handle preparations, and as a result, ended up the only Team Flare executive who hadn't been captured.
"No! There's still a chance! The Ultimate Weapon's still in my hands! As long as I can activate it, the boss's dream can still come true!"
Xerosic steadied himself quickly. Yeah — sure, Lysandre and the rest were all "out of contact" now, but that didn't matter!
The Ultimate Weapon could still be activated. The beautiful world could still be born.
And once that dream was realized, he could get back to his own research — that battle suit he'd been working on.
But the real problem right now was...
Activating the Ultimate Weapon required Yveltal's power. Team Flare had indeed found Yveltal's Cocoon of Destruction and transported it to the base. But how, exactly, was he supposed to control Yveltal and channel its power into the Ultimate Weapon?
Lysandre had never actually told him how to handle that part. If Zygarde had still been available, using it to suppress Yveltal would've been a workable option — but Zygarde was gone now too.
"What if I just wake it up directly and try talking with it? Would it listen?"
Xerosic stared at the massive black-and-red cocoon on the monitor screen, weighing the possibility. Honestly, he was out of other options at this point.
Legend held that Yveltal was the very embodiment of death and destruction — its temperament was probably fairly volatile too, presumably.
So Xerosic genuinely found himself in a bind — if he woke Yveltal up and it decided to attack him directly, what then?
"Screw it! Ali, get in there and wake Yveltal up."
After much deliberation, Xerosic decided the safest first move was simply to wake Yveltal up directly and see what happened. Maybe it'd turn out reasonable to negotiate with.
But an assignment this important — actually waking Yveltal — obviously wasn't something an executive like himself should handle personally.
"Huh? Sir, me?"
A Team Flare grunt named Ali flinched violently, pointing at himself with genuine, visible dread.
"What's there to be scared of? I'm not scared, so why should you be?"
Xerosic glared at Ali, then reassured him with full, confident bravado.
"Go on, don't worry — I'll be watching from here. If anything goes wrong, I'll back you up."
"It's just Yveltal — how much trouble could it possibly cause?"
(End of chapter)
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