The study of the Qi family estate was quiet at this hour — or it would have been, if Erick hadn't been pacing.
He moved back and forth across the wooden floor in his pajamas and slippers, hands clasped behind his back, each step landing with a soft, steady tap. His brows were drawn tight. His eyes were somewhere far away.
Giovanni. In Black Dragon City. Again.
The news had reached him only minutes after he'd finally managed to fall asleep. Giovanni had appeared in the city, linked up with Edwin and Whitney, seized the Rainbow Wing, and taken four people captive in the process. The whole operation had been clean and fast — the kind of thing that didn't leave much room for a response.
Erick stopped pacing.
Giovanni's presence here couldn't be a coincidence. The Qi family and Giovanni were past the point of grievances — they were enemies in the truest sense, with no path back to neutral ground. If Giovanni was in Black Dragon City, there was only one reason that made sense.
He was here for the Qi family.
Erick turned the problem over in his mind. If that was true — and the more he thought about it, the more certain he became — then what options did the family actually have?
His thoughts went to God's Coffin-6. The God's Coffin Organization was the only outside force that could realistically change the balance. But God's Coffin-6 had been sent specifically to acquire the Rainbow Wing — and had failed. Giovanni had walked away with it instead.
What was God's Coffin-6 doing now? Where were they?
He pressed two fingers to his temple, exhaled through his nose, and sat down at the desk. His right hand found the edge of the wood and began tapping — a slow, even rhythm. It was a habit he'd had for years. Thinking required stillness in the body and motion in the hand; somehow the combination worked.
Tap. Tap.Tap. Tap.
Nearly ten minutes passed before he surfaced from the silence. When he did, his expression had settled into something harder, more decided. He reached for the phone on the desk.
"Third Uncle." He kept his voice low and even. "Tomorrow morning, take all the children, the women, and the elders of the family to the Imperial Capital. Don't come back until I call. Prepare for the worst."
A pause. Then an older voice from the other end: "Has something happened?"
"Giovanni is here."
Another pause, longer this time. "And you? Aren't you coming with us?"
"I'm the rotating chairman," Erick said. "If I leave, everything we've built over the past months falls apart. I have to stay."
He set the phone down and sat in the quiet for a moment after. Whatever Giovanni's intentions were, the Qi family couldn't afford to be caught unprepared. The family it was now was not the family it had once been — that much was painfully clear.
He could only hope the gap wasn't as wide as he feared.
Meanwhile, in a quiet private house elsewhere in Black Dragon City, a very different kind of meeting was beginning.
"Good. Everyone's here."
Jacob's gaze moved around the room. Every person present wore one of the matching Team Rocket masks he had prepared — dark, with a stylized flame motif — except for Whitney, who still had her oversized helmet in place.
This was, in a real sense, Team Rocket's first full operation since its founding. Raya had been unable to come due to illness, and Caleb was in the Imperial Capital overseeing the detective agency. Everyone else had made it.
Sylvia, Davis, Layne, Zion — the four of them were the core of what Team Rocket actually was right now. Its backbone.
Edwin and Whitney sat slightly apart from the others, watching them with quiet attention. Both were trying to read the room — trying to guess, from posture and presence alone, what these people were capable of. Whoever Jacob had gathered around him hadn't been chosen casually. That much was already obvious.
"Sit down, everyone." Jacob settled into the chair at the head of the table and gestured for the others to do the same. "I asked you all to come here tonight because there's something I need to work through with all of you."
The room settled. The only sound was the low crackle of the fire.
"You all know about the situation with the Qi family," Jacob said, letting his gaze move slowly around the table. "I want to hear your thoughts. How should we handle them?"
Davis spoke first, as Jacob had half-expected.
"Root them out entirely." His voice was blunt and without hesitation. Long years working with international poaching organizations had left little patience for half-measures in the man.
Layne waited a beat before responding, her tone precise and measured — a sharp contrast to Davis.
"I'd advise against acting directly," she said. "The Qi family is already standing at the edge of a cliff. They don't need a push — they need to fall on their own. If we work quietly in the background and accelerate what's already happening, we get the same result without the exposure."
Her brother Zion nodded in agreement. "The Qi family has accumulated enemies over the years. We don't need to be the ones who finish them. We find someone to coordinate those enemies, point them in the right direction, and let the pressure do the work. No need to put ourselves in the center of it."
He paused, then added: "And we should be careful not to underestimate them. Even a Pokémon on its last legs can still hit hard. If the Qi family feels truly cornered, they might reach out to a Champion for protection and relocate everything — family, assets, operations — to the Imperial Capital or abroad. That would make things considerably more complicated."
Jacob listened to all of it without reacting. He didn't nod, didn't shake his head. He kept his expression neutral.
He had learned early that a leader who shows his position too quickly shuts down the conversation. If the people at the table already knew where he stood, they would shape their answers to match — and he would learn nothing. Let them speak first. Respond last.
"Sylvia," he said, turning to her. "What do you think?"
Sylvia was quiet for a moment. "I think... you shouldn't be the one to act directly," she said carefully.
She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to. Jacob understood. There were things in Sylvia's past that made conversations like this sit differently for her than they did for Davis.
"And you two?" His gaze shifted to Edwin and Whitney.
Edwin blinked, briefly caught off guard. He had assumed he was here as an observer. Apparently not.
"My suggestion," he said, after a moment's consideration, "is to go all the way. Full elimination."
He glanced around the table, apparently aware that this might not be the popular answer.
"That's just my experience talking. The regions I've worked in are a lot messier than this. If you leave something behind, it finds a way to grow back. Mercy without leverage isn't kindness — it's an opening."
Jacob gave a small nod. Edwin and Davis were similar in that way — shaped by years of operating in places where restraint was often punished.
"Whitney?"
Whitney tilted her helmet slightly to one side, the motion carrying a trace of casual indifference.
"Mm. I don't have a strong preference either way." She paused. "Actually — do you have an extra mask? Are you handing those out?"
Jacob looked at her for a moment. She was already wearing a helmet that concealed her face entirely. But he didn't say that.
"The mask is for members of Team Rocket," he said.
He reached into his jacket, produced one of the flame-patterned masks, and held it out with a measured smile. "Have you thought it over? Are you joining?"
Whitney took the mask from his hand before he'd finished speaking. The electronic voice from her helmet sounded, flat and unhurried.
"I'll join. But first — a question."
Jacob waited.
"With your strength, you could compete for a Champion position," she said, looking directly at him. "So why build Team Rocket? Why take the role of the villain?"
Jacob said nothing for a moment.
The fire crackled softly behind him.