It was true. The results Damian laid out were real, and Kukui had to give him that.
But Kukui didn't buy the logic behind them—not for a second.
To him, Damian wasn't proving anything. He was flipping labels, blurring lines, and twisting cause and effect until it sounded reasonable.
Sure, the outcome looked clean on paper. But what about the point of it all?
Team Rocket had always been driven by one thing: their own gain. That didn't change just because Damian dressed it up nicely.
"Damian," Kukui said, voice steady, "is that everything you wanted to say?"
Damian tipped his head, a half-smile pulling at his mouth. "Oh? You're not done."
Kukui didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to.
"This is your version of events. But we both know what Team Rocket has done. Stealing Pokémon from travelers. Using Pokémon in genetic experiments. Forcing their way into private businesses. Taking illegal jobs under the table…"
He ticked the crimes off like he'd memorized them years ago. No hesitation. No need to verify. These were exactly why Team Rocket in Kanto had a wanted notice from the League.
"And just last month," Kukui added, eyes locked on Damian, "Team Rocket hijacked the S.S. Anne. They pretended it was a Trainer event, lured people onboard, and tried to strip them of their Pokémon."
The example landed like a slap.
"Damian," Kukui said, calm but sharp, "are you seriously still going to talk your way out of this?"
He didn't need to dismantle Damian's argument piece by piece. Team Rocket's record was already a mountain.
Damian didn't flinch.
"I'm not denying any of that," he said easily. "But what does it have to do with me?"
The S.S. Anne incident was real. Damian had picked up the details from Giovanni—Apollo had run the operation. Supposedly it was chasing some rare Pokémon. It still ended in failure after two young Trainers tore through the whole crew.
Kukui froze for a beat. "What…?"
Damian spread his hands like this was obvious. "Professor Kukui, that was Kanto Team Rocket. What does that have to do with my Team Rocket in Alola?"
His tone was almost righteous, like he'd drawn a clean line in bright paint and dared Kukui to step over it.
Kukui went silent, genuinely thrown.
Damian leaned in just a fraction, voice smooth.
"Stealing from random travelers? Low payoff, high attention—dumb. Genetic experiments on living things? That's sick. And taking over other people's companies?" He snorted. "Why would we bother? We build our own. We grow them into serious businesses. Big enough to stand on their own."
He didn't defend the crimes. He sidestepped them—then crushed the examples Kukui had offered with a different set of rules.
Kukui's brow tightened. "You're saying your Team Rocket is different from the one in Kanto."
Damian smiled like the answer was printed on Kukui's forehead. "Isn't it?"
Kukui's mind spun. He replayed everything since Team Rocket had surfaced in Alola—every move, every pattern, every absence of the usual chaos.
After a long moment, he studied Damian with a hard, searching look.
He could see it now.
Damian didn't join Team Rocket to "help it expand."
No—this wasn't expansion. It was ownership. Damian wanted a Team Rocket that answered to him and him alone.
Otherwise, why keep hammering the "Alola versus Kanto" angle like it was the whole point?
Kukui exhaled slowly. "What are you really trying to say?"
Damian didn't blink.
"Legalization," he said. "I want Team Rocket legalized in Alola."
"Impossible."
Kukui shut it down instantly—no pause, no debate.
"Damian, have you even thought through what that would do?"
Legalizing Team Rocket in Alola? That wasn't reform. That was lighting a match near gasoline.
Even if the Alola branch hadn't committed anything catastrophic here yet, the Kanto branch was still a wanted criminal organization. If Alola legalized a branch bearing the same name, it would look like open defiance—like Alola was spitting in the Kanto League's face.
How was that not a declaration of war?
Damian waved it off, calm as ever. "Don't get worked up, Professor."
He knew it was a dead ask—for now.
"If you won't do it, fine. I'm not forcing it." His smile stayed in place, but his eyes stayed sharp. "What I am saying is this: there's no upside for you to pick a fight with my Team Rocket."
Kukui didn't respond, so Damian kept going—careful, deliberate, choosing words that wouldn't hit Kukui's obvious pressure points.
"The stronger Alola gets, the better it is for me too. That's just reality."
He tilted his head. "Be honest—what do you gain by keeping us underground and hostile?"
Damian's voice stayed casual, but he drove the point like a nail.
"There are things your people can't handle fast. Things you don't have the tools for. My side does."
He started listing, one by one—clean, confident, like he'd rehearsed it.
"Trash like Team Skull? Those guys don't survive in Alola if I'm here."
"Poachers, parasites, the crews that leech off your islands? We don't allow that."
"And Ultra Beasts?" Damian's expression tightened, just enough to sell seriousness. "When they show up, my people move first. We get civilians out. We lock it down. We stop it before it spreads."
Then he ended it in the simplest terms possible.
"All we want is to coexist. No war. No drama. Same land, separate lanes."
Because friction with Kukui and the others would slow everything down—and Damian was building something that needed time.
And there was another issue Damian didn't say out loud: he wasn't going to stay in Alola forever.
If Kukui—a Champion-level Trainer—and the Island Kahunas decided to wipe out the Alola branch the moment Damian left, the organization would bleed money. A lot of it.
Even with Lusamine as a quiet asset in the background, that risk sat there like a loaded gun.
Kukui's jaw flexed. His silence stretched.
Inside his head, reason screamed at him not to bargain with a devil—especially not this one. Damian's Team Rocket wasn't a frothing monster like Kanto's, but that didn't make it safe. It made it harder to spot.
At last, Kukui spoke, voice heavier than before.
"I need to talk to Hala and the others. I can't decide something like this alone."
Damian nodded immediately, like he'd expected that answer all along.
"Of course. But I want you to look at my Team Rocket rationally, Professor." He smiled, easy and confident. "And for what it's worth—I can personally guarantee we're law-abiding citizens."
Kukui stared at him.
"…Right."
Law-abiding citizens.
Kukui didn't believe that for a second.
Damian's branch wasn't openly cruel like the Kanto one. But calling them "law-abiding" was ridiculous.
In Kukui's eyes, the danger was simply hidden under a clean mask.
Kanto Team Rocket chased attention with loud, ugly crimes. Damian's Team Rocket did the opposite—quiet growth, low profile, tight control.
A snake in tall grass.
And Damian's ambition?
Not one bit smaller than Giovanni's.
He looked relaxed. He smiled like he was harmless. But Kukui had seen the other side—cold, calculating, ruthless when it mattered.
Kukui's chest felt tight.
Agreeing to coexist—letting Team Rocket expand quietly in Alola's underworld—felt like feeding a tiger and praying it wouldn't bite later.
It gave them room to grow. Room to spread. Room to hollow the region out from the inside.
But going to war right now?
Even ignoring whether they could actually erase the Alola branch… could they win if Team Rocket stopped pretending?
They could call the Kanto League for help. But Damian's people could simply vanish, retreating into the shadows, impossible to pin down—only to become a bigger problem later.
And that was the worst part.
If Kukui tore off the mask now, he might not get a second chance.