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"Meowth, this thing isn't good news. It's just some fighting competition," Jessie said with clear annoyance in her voice. She thought Meowth had been hit in the head and was actually calling such a thing good news.
"No, Jessie! Look here—it says the winner gets 100,000 Pokédollars!" James exclaimed, his sharp eyes catching the most important detail on the flyer.
"One hundred thousand Pokédollars? That's so much money!" Jessie's attitude changed instantly as she snatched the flyer from Meowth's paws and studied it carefully.
However, her excitement faded as she read through the details.
"Ugh, the prize money only goes to the winner, and this competition only allows Fighting-type Pokémon to compete. We don't have any Pokémon like that," Jessie complained, tossing the flyer to the ground in frustration.
"But Jessie, aren't you forgetting something important?" James asked, having noticed something crucial that he knew Meowth had also spotted.
"Jessie, did you forget that our salary gets paid tomorrow, meow?" Meowth looked at Jessie with obvious contempt, as if she were being completely foolish.
"Of course I remember! How could I forget such an important day as payday?" Jessie snapped back, irritated that Meowth and James seemed to be looking down on her, which left her feeling confused about their attitudes.
Incidentally, even the villainous organization Team Rocket provides salaries to its members. After all, if you want people to work hard for you, you naturally have to give them money for living expenses, right? They didn't know about evil organizations in other regions, but Team Rocket definitely paid wages. Giovanni ran numerous operations and generated substantial funds for the organization. After accounting for research and business expenses, there was still enough left over to pay Team Rocket members their salaries.
"But our salaries come from the branch office, and that branch was completely destroyed yesterday," James said with a grim expression, already imagining the prospect of starving for several days.
"That's right, meow! Since the branch was wiped out, naturally nobody's going to pay us our salary, meow! And our living expenses are almost completely used up too, meow!" Meowth's face looked equally bleak as he pulled out his wallet, which contained only a few measly dollars.
"Wait, what do you mean? We're about to enter a period where we won't have money for food?!" Jessie finally grasped the seriousness of their situation and immediately checked her own wallet. Well, she had slightly more than ten dollars, which was better than Meowth's pitiful amount.
"Not only that, but we used to stay at the Rainbow City base for shelter. Now there's a whole group of police officers guarding that base, so we also need to solve our housing problem," James said, tears already forming in his eyes as he couldn't bear to imagine himself sleeping on the streets.
"If we want to receive our salary, we'll probably have to travel to other Team Rocket bases. The closest one is in Saffron City, but we probably don't have enough money to get there," Meowth explained, seemingly recalling his own days of living on the streets, which brought tears to his eyes as well.
"Fine! In order to have enough food and proper shelter in the future, let's enter this Fighting competition! We'll win the championship and claim those 100,000 Pokédollars!" Jessie declared aggressively, picking up the flyer she had just thrown away moments before.
"That's right! As long as we get those 100,000 Pokédollars, we could even eat ramen noodles every single day!" James wiped away his tears and shouted these remarkably unambitious words with great enthusiasm.
"I want to eat egg fried rice, barbecued pork rice, chicken cutlet, and steak!" Meowth chimed in, already imagining all the delicious food he could buy with 100,000 Pokédollars. He was practically drooling just thinking about it.
"Hmph, you two are so unambitious. If it were me, I'd definitely go enjoy some luxury," Jessie muttered under her breath, though her own desires sounded equally unambitious.
Regardless, all three of them were now fantasizing about winning the championship. They hadn't realized at all just how dangerous the road ahead would be.
"Well, first things first—we need a Fighting-type Pokémon," Jessie decided promptly, preparing to capture a Fighting-type Pokémon to enter in the competition.
"Jessie, don't worry about that problem. This poor guy who we knocked unconscious appears to be a contestant himself," James said with a sinister smile, pointing at the passerby who was now lying unconscious nearby.
"That's right, meow! We'll just take the Poké Balls from him. This way, we won't need to go through the trouble of capturing Fighting-type Pokémon ourselves, meow!" Meowth sneered as he removed the Poké Balls from the unconscious person's belt and shook them experimentally.
"Plus, this Pokémon might be stronger than we initially thought, so we'll get a powerful Pokémon completely for free!" Jessie said with satisfaction, holding the Poké Ball while laughing triumphantly.
The Team Rocket trio laughed together at that moment, as if their struggling days were finally about to come to an end. Then they disguised themselves as the legitimate contestant and headed directly toward the main hall of the Fighting competition.
"By the way, I remember that Team Rocket usually shows up to cause trouble at competitions like this. I wonder if they'll appear again, especially since I just sent them flying away recently," Eddie mused to himself. He had already arrived at the Fighting competition hall and suddenly remembered the notorious Team Rocket trio.
Incidentally, in the anime storyline, Team Rocket appeared in almost every episode, but that was a requirement of the plot structure. Eddie felt it was actually quite unlikely they would show up again so soon.
"But if they do come, I'll let Eevee give them another powerful attack. It'll be a good way for Eevee to vent some frustration," Eddie said cheerfully while gently petting Eevee's head.
"Eevee! Eevee!" Eevee responded enthusiastically, clearly thinking that plan sounded perfectly fine. The little Pokémon genuinely wanted another chance to battle those three Team Rocket members again.
Even though they were often comedic and bumbling, their identity as Team Rocket members remained unchanged. Eevee hadn't seriously injured them earlier only because of their amusing nature. Otherwise, those two Thunderbolt attacks would probably have sent them to the hospital rather than just blasting them away into the distance.
However, this didn't mean that Eevee wouldn't fight them again if they crossed paths. When duty called, Eevee would do what needed to be done without hesitation.