Deep inside Seafloor Cavern.
Right now, every gaze in the chamber was locked on the Ultra Ball still hanging in midair.
For one reason only—
The legendary super‑ancient Legendary Pokémon Kyogre was inside that ball!
Could he actually catch it?!
Everyone stared unblinkingly at the Ultra Ball as its indicator light flashed for the first time.
Caitlin felt a long‑lost rush of nervous tension. It had to work, right? Of course it would!
Damian could do anything.
Archie, Shelly, and the rest of Team Aqua—especially Archie—looked like their faces were about to split. No way. There was no way Kyogre was getting caught by this punk!
Absolutely impossible!
Damian himself wasn't in any hurry. He'd already mentally prepared to keep chucking balls anyway; he had two hundred Ultra Balls in his bag.
Worst case, he'd feed every last one to Kyogre. As long as he caught it in the end, that was a massive win.
Beep~
The Ultra Ball shook a second time in the air—just a small wiggle.
Ding.
With a clear little chime, the Ultra Ball snapped still.
Kyogre—caught successfully!
The stopped Ultra Ball started to fall toward the pool, but Armored Mewtwo immediately caught it in midair with psychic power and floated it slowly over to Damian.
Damian hadn't expected it to work on the very first Ultra Ball. Was it just because Kyogre was sleeping way too deeply? Highly possible.
Didn't matter either way.
Staring at the Ultra Ball in front of him, Damian's lips curled upward as he raised his hand and caught the ball containing Kyogre.
His palm carefully felt the weight and texture of the Ultra Ball. In the end, he couldn't suppress the joy bubbling up inside.
"Hehe～ hmhmhahahahaha～! I got Kyogre!!"
The boy's arrogant, delighted laughter echoed loudly through the underground cavern.
Caught!! The Legendary Kyogre! This was Kyogre!
According to Mairin's Mega Evolution sketch diary records—
"The ruler of the skies, said to rival the gods—Mega Rayquaza.
Its awakened primal form… supposedly, every step it takes creates new land—Primal Groudon.
And Primal Kyogre, which survived from the super‑ancient era, is like the deep‑sea king ruling all seas—Primal Kyogre."
The sky‑dragon Rayquaza, the crimson lord of the land Groudon, the azure deep‑sea king Kyogre.
These were Hoenn Region's three super‑ancient Legendaries!
And now, the azure deep‑sea king… was in his hand!
"Impossible! How can this be?! This shouldn't be possible—how could Kyogre get caught by you?!"
The disbelieving voice came from Archie. The Team Aqua boss who'd been pursuing Kyogre all this time was on the verge of a breakdown.
He couldn't understand. He couldn't accept it. Why had Kyogre actually gone into that Ultra Ball?
Why hadn't Kyogre resisted at all??
You seriously slept that hard? You got stuffed into a Ultra Ball and just kept snoozing?!
What really broke Archie was that this guy had only thrown a single ball and shoved Kyogre inside.
Kyogre! Was your standards really that low, you damn fish?!!
If he'd known, Archie would've just tried tossing a Poké Ball himself first!!
Wuuuuu—Archie was really about to mentally collapse. The Pokémon of his dreams had been snatched away that easily, right in front of him.
"What the hell are you babbling about? If Kyogre's not with me, is it supposed to be with you?"
Damian smoothed his expression back out and turned around, half‑amused, half‑mocking, to look at Archie.
He knew full well that right now he'd only stuck Kyogre into a ball. To truly count as catching Kyogre, he still needed its recognition.
But it didn't matter. Having such a good starting point was more than enough to make Damian very happy.
He was in a great mood.
"You—!" Archie's forehead veins bulged.
"Punk! If you've got any guts then fight me one‑on‑one! No Pokémon!"
Archie roared.
"Huh?"
Damian gave him a very odd look—then couldn't hold back a laugh.
"Archie, you're honestly pretty funny. You think you hit that hard? Sure, that muscle looks legit, I'll give you that—but what good is it if you can fight? Can your Pokémon fight?"
Damian openly mocked him. Was this guy's skull packed full of muscle too?
Pfft～
Courtney and Zinnia both had to clap hands over their mouths to stop themselves from laughing out loud.
Archie's dark face flushed red. His fists clenched so tightly his knuckles popped. In his whole life, Archie had never been humiliated like this—
"All right, enough of that. Let's talk business."
Once he'd laughed enough, Damian looked Archie and the others over, utterly at ease, Kyogre's Ultra Ball lightly spinning between his fingers.
"Tell me—how should I deal with you guys?"
The moment his words fell, Archie and the rest visibly stiffened.
"As the losers, whatever you decide to do with us is entirely your prerogative."
Archie stayed silent; Shelly spoke up in a low voice, even addressing Damian with honorifics.
She wasn't stupid. They were the defeated side, all of them captives now. They had zero say in anything.
"Exactly. You're all my spoils of war now. Speaking of which—"
Damian glanced at the pool that was still shimmering faintly with blue light.
Kyogre's bathwater, after who‑knew‑how‑many years, really did seem… subtly different.
Kyogre was gone, and yet the water still glowed.
"You Team Aqua guys are Hoenn's evil organization. And no one's really keeping tabs on what you're doing out here."
Damian tilted his head, lips curling into a nasty little smile, half his face hidden in shadow.
"This Seafloor Cavern is plenty hidden. If I throw you all into this pool… no one would ever know, right?"
"!!!"
Shelly's pupils contracted hard, her body shaking.
Archie's face also twisted in shock. The other Team Aqua members were outright terrified.
Bro, you serious right now?
But looking at the dark, threatening smile on Damian's face, more than a few Team Aqua grunts could only gulp loudly.
"Mr. Damian, that would be a crime!"
Shelly couldn't help blurting it out. This was going way too far!
"Now that's a joke. We're Team Rocket. You think we don't commit crimes? You expect us to run around doing charity?" Damian's tone turned even more mocking.
"All right then, it's decided."
Shelly's face went chalk‑white. Several of the Team Aqua members behind her were shaking so hard on their feet it looked like their knees would give any second.
"Kid! Come at me if you've got a problem! Leave my men out of this!"
Archie forced himself to sound brave, glaring at Damian as he growled.
"Not bad. Got some guts. I'll give you what you want."
Damian waved his hand.
Armored Mewtwo's eyes lit with blue light. Under psychic control, Archie's body lifted into the air, then dropped head‑first—
Straight into Kyogre's "bathwater."
Glug glug glug～
Archie thrashed desperately underwater—but it was pointless. A steady stream of bubbles floated to the surface.
Shelly and the others watched their boss with ugly, fearful expressions.
About ten seconds later, Armored Mewtwo flicked a finger, and Archie's head popped back out of the water.
"Cough, cough～"
Archie hacked violently, spewing out mouthfuls of water.
He was good in the water under normal circumstances—but with Armored Mewtwo holding him in place, he couldn't do anything but get mad.
"Let that water soak into your brain for a bit, so you don't blurt out any more brain‑dead nonsense later."
Damian flicked his hand again; Archie drifted back through the air under psychic control and dropped roughly back where he'd been.
Archie gasped for breath, chest heaving. Even for him, that had been a close one—he was pretty sure he'd just seen his great‑grandma waving at him from the bottom of the pool.
"I talk. You listen. I don't like people interrupting with their opinions in the middle. Got it?"
Damian's tone slowly cooled.
"I'm a softhearted guy. If anyone's really unhappy about this, you can step forward right now. I'm sure the wild Sharpedo outside—"
"—would be thrilled with how tender your meat is."
The chill in his voice made the cavern feel like ice.
Not a single Team Aqua grunt dared to so much as breathe loud, terrified of getting dumped into the pool for real. Their lives were nowhere near lived out yet!
Even Archie shut up.
"From this moment on, Team Aqua's being folded into Team Rocket. Every last one of you gets reassigned under our chain of command."
Damian looked over the group calmly.
"Once you're in Team Rocket, we're all one organization. Benefits and welfare are very negotiable. But if we find out anyone's not loyal—has thoughts of betraying us…"
Damian chuckled twice. He didn't need to spell the rest out; everyone there could imagine just fine.
"Archie, Shelly—you're going to write down every one of Team Aqua's base locations. After we get out of here, you'll contact all your original Team Aqua members and tell them to rendezvous just outside Lilycove City."
"Understand?"
"Understood."
Shelly replied quietly.
"Hm? That all you got?"
"UNDERSTOOD!"
Shelly and the others all answered in unison, voices much louder.
"Good. Gladion, you take over from here."
Damian nodded, satisfied. Gladion stepped up in front of Archie and the others and began taking count.
"Damian, are you seriously going to absorb all of Team Aqua? Is that really going to work? That Archie guy doesn't exactly look thrilled."
Zinnia asked Damian curiously. As Team Aqua's former boss, Archie obviously had huge prestige inside the organization.
A lot of Team Aqua people were definitely going to stay loyal to him.
"A fly is just a fly. No matter how much it buzzes around, it's still just something you can swat dead whenever you feel like it."
Damian didn't take Archie seriously at all.
"I've already given him a chance. If he can't make anything out of it, then he really is just hopeless trash."
He lowered his gaze to the Ultra Ball in his hand, still in a great mood.
The haul this time was insanely good: he'd taken Team Aqua's boss and Admin under his wing—and picked up a fat‑headed fish on the side.
Zinnia folded her arms, keeping her guard up—but after thinking it over, she couldn't really find fault.
Archie's strength spoke for itself. If Damian ever did want to clean him up, snuffing him out would be trivial.
"Courtney, Domino—you two take a few people and bottle up some of the water from this pool."
Damian thought for a moment, then gave instructions to Courtney and Domino.
"Yes."
The two of them immediately ran over toward Archie's group, planning to grab a couple grunts to help haul water.
"What do you even want that water for?" Zinnia asked, baffled.
"If I'm not wrong, Kyogre's probably been soaking in that pool for at least a thousand years, right?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right." Zinnia blinked. She still had no idea where he was going with this.
"In that case, the water in this pool definitely has Kyogre's scent and aura all soaked into it. It's probably properly marinated by now. Take some back and study it."
Damian figured this fat‑headed fish's "bathwater" might actually have some mysterious effects.
Come on, it was Kyogre's bathwater, steeped for over a thousand years!
"???"
Zinnia and Caitlin traded a look—and saw the same speechless disbelief in each other's eyes.
With the Seafloor Cavern business basically handled, Damian and the others exited the cavern.
Sunlight pouring down from above made Damian feel warm all over.
Archie and the others also relaxed the instant they stepped out. The fresh air felt like rebirth. They'd nearly gotten buried at sea for good!
"Lord Damian, I think there's something you might be interested in."
Archie hesitated, but for the sake of his own life and that of his former subordinates, he decided to "wise up."
"Oh? Let's hear it." Damian looked at Archie with genuine interest.
After having his head "water‑cooled" by Armored Mewtwo's psychic earlier, Archie's IQ did seem to have climbed a notch.
"I know where one of Team Magma's large bases is!"
A vicious grin spread across Archie's face.
Team Aqua was gone. Kyogre was gone. His freedom was gone.
In that case, Team Magma sure as hell wasn't going to keep living easy either!!
"You sure about that?"
"Absolutely."
"Very good. If that checks out, I'll count it as a big contribution. I can promote you to executive."
Damian patted Archie on the shoulder. Pfft～ guy was solid. Those muscles weren't for show—you could tell just from touch.
Archie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Half an hour ago he'd still been a small boss. Now he was… a maybe‑future executive—and that was if things worked.
"Also, you don't like Maxie, do you?"
Damian thought for a second. If you wanted subordinates to be genuinely loyal, you had to hand out real perks—ideally ones that hit exactly what they wanted.
Archie's eyes lit up.
"Once we nab Maxie, I'll hand him over to you. You're allowed to fight him one‑on‑one, no Pokémon. Just don't kill him."
"Hahahaha!! Lord Damian, you're the best!!"
Archie roared with laughter, practically shaking with delight, his fists clenching so hard his joints popped.
Maxie! Just you wait. He'd been itching to solo that guy for ages!
Courtney: Lord Maxie, I… sincerely hope you'll be okay—
~~~
Get early access to 80+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
patreon.com/PokemonStoryWeaver
~~~
Every 100 Power Stones = 2 extra chapter