Chapter 220: The Victory Pokémon! Mammon! Put Me Back in My Ball!!
"Victory Pokémon" was, of course, a loose translation of what it was.
"Tini?"
The little fire-mouse tilted its head, watching the three of them approach from behind its tree.
It didn't seem frightened. Just curious.
Something about this human — the warmth in the air around him, a quality it couldn't quite name — felt instinctively comfortable. And there was another familiar scent. One it recognized.
That annoying Tornadus. But hadn't Tornadus been out causing windstorms in the wild just recently? Had it been caught?
"Hello there, Victini."
"Hello hello~!"
Mammon stopped at the base of the tree and smiled. Jirachi, from his shoulder, waved both small hands at the little creature with great enthusiasm.
This was Victini — the Mythical Pokémon, the reason Mammon had come to Eindoak in the first place. Small, soft, yellow-toned like something sewn from sunlight, with large blue eyes of absolute clarity and two ear-tufts shaped into a V. A genuinely adorable Pokémon.
"Tini~"
Victini drifted off the branch slowly, floating a little closer to Mammon. It looked at Jirachi with eyes full of curiosity.
It recognized Jirachi. But in its memory, Jirachi should still have been sleeping.
"I'm Mammon's partner now~!" Jirachi said, with the guileless cheer of someone reporting good news. "Do you want to come with us too, Victini?"
"Tini?" Victini bit one of its fingers, apparently thinking it over.
It had been in Eindoak for a very, very long time. It had seen a great deal from here. But—
"We can take you places you've never been. Show you things you've never seen." Mammon kept his voice easy, his smile genuine. "That's why I came here — to find you."
A pause.
"Would you like to be friends for life?"
"Tini..."
Victini took a small step backward.
It looked at Mammon with something that was not exactly fear, but was definitely a certain wariness. The initial ease it had felt — the instinctive positive response to Mammon's presence — was still there. But this was moving rather fast.
Friends for life.
That was a significant commitment to make with someone you'd met forty seconds ago.
Victini felt it needed more time to think about this.
"Don't be nervous. I mean it sincerely — I came a long way specifically because I wanted to find you." Mammon decided that since his earnest approach had produced a backward step, he could adjust tactics slightly. "And even if you're not ready to agree right now — I'm not leaving without you. So we might as well settle this with a battle. If you lose, you become my partner."
"?"
A very large question mark appeared to form above Victini's head.
This human was strange. Battle? Victini wasn't particularly inclined toward fighting directly. It preferred to amplify — to share its power with those it approved of and watch them win with its support. That was the arrangement it preferred.
"What do you say?"
Mammon's expression was very sincere.
Victini considered this for a long moment.
If they were going to become partners, shouldn't they at least understand each other first? This was a first meeting. Asking for a lifetime commitment from someone you'd just encountered seemed—
Victini started to lift its head to communicate this reasonable position.
A dark shape appeared at Mammon's side without a sound.
Violet flames burned in its eyes, focused with cold precision on Victini.
The malice in that gaze was not particularly subtle.
Victini took another small step backward, swallowed, and felt its perspective clarify considerably.
"Tini!!"
Elesa, watching from behind, had an expression that was difficult to categorize as Victini — whose fur was nearly standing on end — abruptly straightened up and announced its decision with unexpected volume and conviction.
"Excellent. Victini caught."
Mammon looked at the Poké Ball in his hand with satisfaction.
Under the combined weight of his sincere persuasion and Dark Mewtwo's ambient presence, Victini had agreed to become his partner and entered the ball.
It had agreed through what might charitably be described as tearful acceptance, but Mammon didn't see this as a problem. He wasn't going to treat Victini poorly. He genuinely liked it — not just for what it could do, though what it could do was substantial.
The Victory Pokémon. Its very nature was the embodiment of the concept of "victory."
To put it simply: with Victini's amplification active, a Caterpie's Tackle could defeat a Dragonite's Dragon Rush. Beat it. Break through it. The gap in power that should make that impossible stopped mattering.
It worked on the same principle as Palkia representing Space, Dialga representing Time, Arceus representing Knowledge. Concepts made manifest.
Victini's "Victory" wasn't on the same tier as those fundamental concepts, naturally. The world existed because Space, Time, and Antimatter had unified into Matter, and Knowledge, Emotion, and Will had unified into Spirit. Matter and Spirit were the foundation. Everything else — including Victory — emerged afterward.
But within its domain, Victini was real. Its amplification effects were genuine and significant at Champion-tier and below. At the highest levels — legendary battles at full strength — the amplification would diminish in relative impact. But at the level Mammon currently operated in most of his battles, it was a meaningful advantage.
He watched Victini sitting on his left shoulder, nibbling at a small piece of cake with focused happiness, and felt something genuinely warm about the image.
"This is good."
Left shoulder: Victini, absorbed in cake. Right shoulder: Jirachi, dozing again. Both of them light enough that his shoulders weren't complaining about it yet.
The situation had a certain pleasant quality.
Mammon's group didn't stay in Eindoak long. The next day, they headed back to the castle.
The Sword of the Vale and its associated People of the Vale mythology held essentially no interest for him. Whatever kingdom revival plotlines that old fortress might be connected to — frankly, anyone who tried it would have the Pokémon League at their door by Tuesday.
Back at the castle, Mammon wrapped up the last of his preparations.
He'd been waiting for the right moment. Now it was time.
The old Unova League site — northernmost point in the region, where the original League had been based before its dissolution. The site of the final battle in the original game. An appropriate stage.
Mammon assembled the relevant people and brought them there. Then he released Reshiram and let it stand at the top of the ruins — let it project its presence fully, dropping the concealment that had kept it hidden for the past several days.
Time to be seen.
Somewhere in Unova.
Black Kyurem's eyes snapped open.
The golden irises blazed, and with them came an immediate, explosive surge of pressure.
"THE WHITE DRAGON!!"
Its roar shook the sky for miles in every direction.
Kyurem had absorbed Zekrom and immediately gone hunting for Reshiram, only to find — nothing. No signal. No trace. For days, it had been ranging across Unova in something approaching actual frustration, which was not an emotional state it was accustomed to experiencing.
It had even checked Dragonspiral Tower, where the residual presence of both Zekrom and Reshiram lingered in the stone. Empty. They'd both been there, but weren't anymore.
Kyurem had begun to seriously consider whether Reshiram had left the region entirely. It had not one useful lead.
It had been close to going back to Giant Chasm and sleeping on the problem.
And now — there. Clear as a beacon. Reshiram's presence, fully unmasked, coming from a single location.
"This time you won't escape."
Black Kyurem launched upward and drove toward the signal without hesitation.
Alder's office, Opelucid League building.
Looker came in at a walk that was almost a run.
"Champion Alder — Kyurem is moving. And we've confirmed Mammon at the old League site. Reshiram is with him."
"Confirmed?"
"Very confirmed." Looker pulled out a tablet. A photograph: the ruins of the old League building, and perched at its highest point, unmistakable — the white dragon. Luminous in the afternoon light. "Reshiram is standing at the top of the old site right now."
"What is Mammon doing?" Wallace frowned.
"No idea. But it's an opportunity regardless of the reason."
Alder sat with his chin in his hand, running through it. Kyurem moving toward Mammon was a certainty — Reshiram was the obvious target. And if Kyurem engaged Mammon—
"We need to get civilians out of the surrounding area first." Steven's voice was measured. "That battle is going to be severe. The old League site has some buffer, but towns near Victory Road need to evacuate now."
"Agreed. Looker, handle the evacuations. I'll contact Gym Leader Giovanni and the others."
A point of quiet gratitude: the old League site, not a city center. Whatever happened there, the structural damage would be contained to uninhabited ruins.
Alder stood.
"Whatever Mammon's reasons — this is the battle that determines our position going forward." His voice was quiet but certain. "If we can force a defeat, or at least a retreat, we have leverage. If we can't—"
He'd already been thinking through the negotiation he might have to have with Mammon afterward. It would involve concessions he didn't want to make.
"Move out."
The old Unova Pokémon League site.
Reshiram stood motionless at the top of the ruins, a white shape against the grey sky. The blue of its eyes was calm and distant, focused on something far away. Its cloud-like mane drifted in the wind.
"Reshiram is genuinely beautiful," Kagura said, arms folded, studying it. "Dragon of Truth. The aesthetic holds up."
A brief pause.
"Better looking than N's Zekrom, that's for sure."
"..."
"That's factually accurate, by most conventional beauty standards," Colress agreed, adjusting his glasses.
"..." N opened his mouth. Then didn't say anything.
What was he supposed to say to that?
He looked at Reshiram, and his expression was complicated in layers he wasn't going to try to untangle right now. A living statue. Serene. Standing right out in the open as bait for Kyurem and looking like it wasn't worried about any of it.
N thought of Zekrom, and the gap between how his partner had reacted to Kyurem and how Reshiram was behaving now, and felt something quietly painful.
Because when Zekrom had sensed Kyurem approaching, it had immediately started trying to run.
Reshiram was standing still.
Not that Reshiram wasn't afraid. But—
"Mammon."
Reshiram's telepathy connected to Mammon alone, not broadcast to the group.
"I don't have to fight the ice dragon, right? The plan was just for me to stand here and be bait?"
"You're allowed to observe from a safe distance."
Mammon had never been planning to use Reshiram offensively here anyway. It was a lure, not a combatant.
"I think you should put me back in my ball. You know how Kyurem is — it's completely feral, and it really does want to absorb me. Once it gets here, it might just ignore everything else and come straight for me."
The image of Zekrom being swallowed was, apparently, still very fresh.
Kyurem already ate Zekrom. It is HUNGRY.
Under normal circumstances, Reshiram would not have agreed to stand here under any amount of argument. Mammon had requested this multiple times with significant emphasis before it had yielded.
And it had yielded very reluctantly.
"Mammon. Seriously. I want to go in the ball. Right now."
Reshiram's composure held for about two more seconds.
Then its eyes went sharp.
"OH NO. MAMMON. PUT ME IN THE BALL. KYUREM IS HERE— IT'S RIGHT THERE— MAMMON—!!"
(End of Chapter)
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