Outside Pewter City, Team Rocket base
At this time, the Team Rocket base only had a bunch of defeated remnants who had just fled back from the battlefield.
Lance and Brawly led the international police and Pewter City's Trainers in through the main gate.
Fulang, on the other hand, led the apprentices from the Cerulean Gym to stand guard outside, preventing anyone from escaping.
After a burst of fighting sounds, Team Rocket's Pewter City branch was considered completely wiped out.
Only a group of Team Rocket's low-level members were caught, and Lance and Brawly did not find it surprising at all.
If Team Rocket's cadres were that easy to catch, then they wouldn't be an evil organization spanning two continents and three leagues.
After escorting the captured Team Rocket members to Pewter City, Fulang took the people from the Cerulean Gym back.
And after reporting the situation to the League headquarters, Lance also returned to the Indigo Plateau.
Time came to the next day.
All TV stations on the Kanto continent reported the whole story of the Pewter City incident.
People across the entire continent cursed Team Rocket, this evil organization, without end.
But there were also many citizens who were pursuing the responsibility of the Gym Trainer.
Why, when Team Rocket attacked Pewter City, was the Gym Trainer not in Pewter City?
Very quickly, in order to quell public anger, the League's punishment for Brawly came down.
It ordered that Pewter City's official Gym Trainer Brawly, because of his own dereliction of duty leading to Pewter City's fall, although he made up for it afterward with meritorious service, merit and fault cannot offset each other, and his Gym Trainer status was still revoked.
Pewter City's Rock Gym would next be taken over by his eldest son, Brock, as Gym Trainer.
After the League's punishment came down, Brawly quickly accepted it and transferred the Gym Trainer position to his son Brock to take up.
But Cerulean City's Gym Trainer Fulang would not accept it. In his view, Brawly had not been derelict at all; it was only that Pewter City's guarding force was not strong enough that it was occupied by Team Rocket.
He then appealed to the League in the name of Cerulean City's Cascade Gym Trainer.
The League headquarters quickly replied to his appeal: the whole matter was Brawly's responsibility; this was the conclusion already made by the League headquarters; the appeal was rejected.
Fulang tore up the League's reply document and said with eyes full of anger: "Since everything is our Gym Trainers' responsibility, then whoever likes being this Gym Trainer can be it. Anyway, I'm not doing it anymore!"
After saying that, he returned to the Gym, packed his luggage, and left with his wife.
The League had no choice but to have Fulang's eldest daughter Sakura temporarily serve as Cerulean City's Gym Trainer.
Someone dared to attack a city and even succeeded. Although the League soon sent out the Elite Four to drive them away, the public was still in a panic, causing the League's prestige to be questioned.
It had been many years since anyone dared to provoke the League like this.
Immediately, after a high-level vote, the League decided to launch a sweep against all Team Rocket bases that had been identified across the Kanto continent.
For a time, the whole continent was full of Team Rocket news.
Sanshi Village, Nobunaga's home
Ever since Nobunaga and the other two fled back to their hometown from Pewter City, they heard that Team Rocket's Pewter City base had been destroyed by the Elite Four member Lance leading two Gym Trainers.
The three then lay low steadily in their hometown.
Time hurriedly came to half a year later.
In a certain open area in Viridian Forest, several Pokémon were lying on a huge rock resting.
Visible to the naked eye, the changes in Nobunaga's several Pokémon were all very big.
Ever since Nobunaga lay low in his hometown, from the supplies he had looted from the Pokémon Center, he sold off everything he didn't need in exchange for Pokémon money.
With nurturing resources and Pokémon money, Nobunaga then put into practice on his own Pokémon all the knowledge recorded in "Poison-type Pokémon and Applications" obtained from the Pokémon Center.
Koffing had already reached Level 32, and was about to face a rebirth-like evolution; the poison markings on its deep purple body also looked increasingly obvious.
Golbat also caught up to Koffing, becoming a Level 32 small Pokémon; its wings became even more powerful, and its ultrasonic waves could even cover the surrounding ten kilometers.
Ekans, through this period of effort, stabilized its strength at Level 31; it might only need one high-intensity battle to be able to evolve.
Grimer was the Pokémon with the greatest change. Originally it was only 1.5 meters tall, but now it had already grown to 2 meters; its whole body could completely block Nobunaga, and its strength was currently at Level 30.
Now holding four small Pokémon with elite-level combat power, plus the fact that in the recent period Team Rocket news slowly disappeared from the TV, in Nobunaga's heart the thought also sprouted of going to Cerulean City to look for the organization.
Returning home, Menyan and Shitou were cooking. Seeing Nobunaga come back, they said:
"Today is your seventeenth birthday, and you actually still ran out to train Pokémon!"
Only after hearing the two did Nobunaga remember that today was his birthday; it had also already been a year since he joined Team Rocket.
At night, the three sat at the dining table clinking cups and exchanging toasts. Aside from becoming more solid, Nobunaga's other changes were not that big, but the two beside him had already become completely different from a year ago.
Menyan still wore black glasses and kept long brown hair, but the left sleeve tube was empty; the left arm he lost half a year ago made his whole person become mature.
Shitou's build was still that burly, like a gym coach; his whole body was muscles, but the top of his head had become bald.
A few months ago, while gathering herbs in Viridian Forest, Shitou was attacked by an Arbok. Although he escaped death, one shot of Arbok's Acid hit his head.
After coming back, although his scalp recovered, not a single hair ever grew again.
After Nobunaga proposed to the two the idea of going to Cerulean City to return to Team Rocket, the two also agreed.
After half a year of a Team Rocket life, the three were no longer the youths from the village who only knew how to cause trouble back then; each person had become an elite Trainer holding several Pokémon.
The journey—who knows what is still waiting for them ahead.
Young man, move forward!
Perhaps your road is right ahead.