Bumiao narrowed her eyes and shot back, "Isn't that you?"
After saying that, she raised her hand and started ticking off on her fingers, muttering, "Gym Leader Daisy, Gym Leader Lt. Surge, Gym Leader Blaine… and that Gym Leader Giovanni who comes to our stream as a viewer every single day."
"Add in Gym Leader Sabrina, and that makes five of the eight Kanto gyms that are tied up with us!"
Even as she said it, Bumiao sounded a little surprised herself.
In such a short time, their Fighting Dojo had managed to connect with that many famous people!
"Yeah, the more the better. And this trip to Celadon City really does have something to do with Gym Leader Erika."
Grey nodded, then handed Bumiao his phone with the long block of messages Daisy had sent him. "But we're really not going there just for a collab this time. Take a look yourself."
"Let me have a looook…"
Bumiao took the phone and stared at the screen.
She read it very carefully, almost word for word from start to finish.
By the time she was done, she was a little shaken.
"Catching Team Rocket inside a city? Is that really okay?"
After reading through the chat log, Bumiao voiced her doubts.
If it were an operation to arrest Team Rocket out in the wild somewhere, Bumiao felt Grey could go solo and still pull it off easily.
But the problem was…
This time it was in the middle of a city.
And the Celadon Game Corner contributed a pretty hefty chunk to Celadon City's GDP.
On top of that, it solved a lot of the local employment problem.
Going in to round up Team Rocket under those circumstances—if anything went even a little bit wrong and wasn't handled perfectly, it would be very hard to clean up afterward.
"Still, to just straight-up tell us something this important like that?"
Bumiao rubbed her chin, suddenly getting the feeling that Gym Leader Erika really trusted them.
"Well, I do count as an old hand at arresting Team Rocket by now. I've even taken down three of their four executives."
Grey couldn't help feeling a little proud as he said that.
Sure, Lorelei and Sabrina had both given him huge help along the way.
But he'd put in a lot of work himself too.
"True, true. Our Fighting Dojo is basically a certified good-guy card, so of course they'd think of us."
Bumiao nodded, agreeing with Grey's point.
With a Gym Leader like Grey—who was either catching Team Rocket or on his way to catch Team Rocket most of the time—and with how often he spammed messages in the Gym Leader group chat, whenever someone needed to call in reinforcements for a Rocket bust, the first person they thought of was Grey.
For good reason too. This guy had caught a lot of Team Rocket.
He'd been hauling them in since before he was even a Gym Leader, and once he became one, he went straight to nabbing their officers and executives.
There had even been talk in a secret internal League group chat about whether they should give Grey a seat among the Elite Four—on the theory that if they did, maybe he'd even manage to bag Team Rocket's mysterious boss someday!
"Green, is Gym Leader Grey really that strong?"
Off to the side, Silver lowered his voice and turned to ask Green.
He'd only just arrived here; all he knew was that Grey was strong and that he was a Gym Leader. As for everything else, he was completely in the dark.
But what Grey had just said made Silver's eyes light up.
Back in the Johto region, he'd been chased all over by Team Rocket.
If there was a chance for payback, that sounded pretty nice.
"Yup, yup. And Gym Leader Grey knows a lot of people."
Green nodded, lowering her voice as well to say to Silver, "They say Gym Leader Grey is really close with Lance from the Elite Four in private. I've heard him call Lance 'Lance-Lance' so many times."
"...?"
Silver had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it sounded weirdly intimidating.
A nickname with doubled syllables like that—serious aura.
"And see that Dratini over there? That was sent over directly from the League. With that kind of connection, how close do you think the two of them are? Mmmf… s-stop pinching my cheeks!"
Before she could finish, Grey had already reached out and given Green's cheeks a few playful squeezes, making her words come out all muffled.
"All right, enough spreading rumors. I'm actually not that close with Lance."
Grey was being completely honest.
But when he looked up and met the gazes of the other four, he realized none of them believed him at all.
"What's with those looks? I'm really not lying. We're just not that close. If anything, I'm a bit more familiar with Lorelei from the Elite Four."
Grey scratched his head, more than a little confused.
Since when did telling the truth mean nobody would believe you?
"Yeah, yeah, Gym Leader Grey, everything you say is right."
Bumiao patted Grey on the shoulder, then thumped her own chest, hurriedly declaring that she was absolutely his most loyal believer.
————
Celadon City, Celadon Game Corner, underground base.
"Captain Archer! Bad news!"
The shout sliced through the quiet of the control room. Archer, who had just been about to sip his black coffee, stopped what he was doing, set the cup back on the table, and looked toward the subordinate rushing in in a panic.
"What is it? Speak slowly, no need to rush."
With a faint smile on his face, Archer poured a fresh cup of black coffee from the machine and handed it to the supposed Team Rocket underling.
"Captain Archer, our Celadon Game Corner base has been exposed! A few people who just went out got grabbed, and Officer Jenny's already taken them away!"
The underling sounded frantic, and he even tried to get Archer to run. "Captain Archer, you should hurry and escape through the secret passage!"
"Don't panic. I'm here; nothing's going to happen."
Archer shook his head and passed the coffee over. "Here, have a drink before you go."
"Okay. Be careful then, Captain Archer!"
The man downed the coffee in one gulp, then turned to leave the control room.
And then—
Thud.
As soon as he stood up, a wave of dizziness hit him, and he collapsed straight to the floor.
"League lapdog. You didn't even get my title right."
Archer snorted coldly and pressed a button.
"Get over here and clean this up."
"Understood, Manager Archer."
Once he'd finished giving instructions and ended the call, Archer opened another screen and started a video call with Giovanni.
"Boss, the base under the Game Corner has been discovered. What are your orders? Do we need to transfer the data?"
Standing in front of the screen, Archer held himself ramrod straight, hands pressed tightly to the sides of his legs as he respectfully asked the man on the other end.
"Discovered? What happened? Explain it to me."
In the Viridian Gym, Giovanni paused mid-swirl with the glass of red wine in his hand. Faced with this report, he couldn't treat it lightly.
"Here's how it went. When we sent people back from the Johto region to Celadon City, a few of them had their movements noticed. I had them pose as random street punks and wander around, but the search parties still managed to pick up traces."
Archer pressed his lips together, unwilling to accept it. "I even had their legs broken to make the act more convincing, but the local Gym Leader still rooted them out. This is my incompetence. Please punish me as you see fit, Boss."
"It's fine. For now, move all liquid funds into our overseas accounts, then find a time to pull out."
Giovanni had already decided to abandon the Celadon Game Corner.
Even if the local Gym Leader Erika wasn't that strong, who knew whether she would call in some real monster to help?
After all…
Right next door to Celadon City was Saffron City.
With that, Giovanni ended the video call.
Left alone in front of the darkened screen, Archer swept the coffee cup off the table.
"Grey… if you dare to come this time," he murmured, "I'll make sure it's a one-way trip for you."
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