Onboard the Airship
Whoosh
Luo Yuan and Mewtwo appeared beside True Bird.
"How's the situation?" Luo Yuan asked.
True Bird, who was engrossed in calculating the expenses and losses from the recent operation on her tablet, nearly jumped. She sighed in relief upon realizing it was Luo Yuan.
Casting a curious look at Luo Yuan and Mewtwo, she asked, "It's... over?"
Glancing at her watch, she saw it was just shy of twenty minutes.
"You mean Lance and Agatha? Handled," Luo Yuan replied casually.
"Handled… what does that mean?" True Bird asked, bewildered.
After all, she knew three Elite Four members were involved on the other side, including Lance, who was practically Champion-level.
She had only asked Luo Yuan to keep them occupied for twenty minutes to buy enough time for her team to withdraw. But now he was saying they were "handled"?
A bold thought flashed through True Bird's mind.
"Handled means exactly what it sounds like," Luo Yuan confirmed her suspicions. "Bruno's entire lineup is out of commission. Lance and Agatha have a few Pokémon left standing, but they're not in any condition to pose a problem for us."
He briefly recapped the battle to True Bird.
"!"
True Bird was stunned. She never would have imagined that Luo Yuan alone could bring down a team of Lance, Agatha, and Bruno combined.
Despite Team Rocket's growing influence in Kanto over the years, the Elite Four remained an imposing barrier. Without their interference, Team Rocket would have long since expanded beyond Kanto, instead of merely establishing a small foothold like the one Luo Yuan had built in Hoenn.
And now… as she thought about Luo Yuan single-handedly defeating three Elite trainers, True Bird couldn't shake a sense of disbelief, as if it were all a dream.
But True Bird knew Luo Yuan well. He was nothing if not straightforward in serious matters and never exaggerated a single word.
If he said "handled," then Lance, Agatha, and Bruno were truly taken care of.
Her spirits soared, and her eyes sparkled with excitement.
Luo Yuan could guess what she was thinking just by looking at her.
"It's nothing to get excited over. Mewtwo and Deoxys—if they couldn't handle Lance and Agatha, that would be odd."
Mewtwo and Deoxys—a two-Legendary lineup, especially with Deoxys's adaptable forms, was practically unbeatable. Even four Elites would have only slightly raised the stakes; the outcome would have remained the same.
Seeing True Bird deep in thought, Luo Yuan said nothing further. Instead, he picked up her tablet to glance at the itemized list of Team Rocket's losses.
And immediately, his brows furrowed. "This much damage?"
The situation was worse than he had imagined.
As Team Rocket's second-largest base in Kanto, the Celadon facility also functioned as a warehouse. It held many of the "Team Rocket starter Pokémon" distributed to new recruits, along with a considerable amount of cash and rare items.
Even though True Bird hadn't completed a full assessment, her rough estimate already placed the losses from destroyed equipment, facilities, and stolen items at over a hundred million.
And that wasn't even counting the Celadon Game Corner—a primary source of steady cash flow and a key money-laundering hub for Team Rocket.
With the Game Corner included, the overall loss was incalculable.
As one of Team Rocket's high-ranking executives—who considered himself second only to Giovanni and took Rocket assets personally—Luo Yuan felt deeply unsettled by the extent of the losses.
He thought back on the earlier battle and found himself regretting going easy on Lance and Agatha.
In truth, the losses could have been worse had True Bird not intervened.
She had managed to rescue a portion of supplies during the agent extraction, but the most valuable items and cash were seized when the League breached the base and tightly secured them. As for the remaining standard items… Rocket's inventory was so vast that, even if the League wanted, it would take them days to fully haul everything out.
"There wasn't much I could do." True Bird sighed. She had already done all she could.
Moreover, this year had been financially rough for Team Rocket. As Team Rocket's head of finance, she was all too aware of the organization's current condition.
Due to high-profile incidents this year—the St. Anne affair, the Tentacruel attack on Blue Pool, and the Sevii Islands fiasco—Team Rocket's increased activity had discouraged tourists from visiting Kanto, severely impacting the region's tourism industry. And Team Rocket had a considerable stake in tourism-related businesses like hotels and amusement parks.
This had already hit Rocket's annual revenue hard.
On top of that, the Mewtwo Project had drained a substantial portion of Rocket's cash flow. While Mewtwo had finally been created, the destruction of New Island base had cost Rocket over a billion.
All of this had pushed Rocket's budget to its limit.
The ten million recently allocated to Luo Yuan had already been pulled from other projects. Under normal circumstances, Giovanni would have funded Hoenn's branch with far more. Only this year's financial strain had forced his hand.
Now, with the Celadon base in shambles, Team Rocket's finances were even further in the red.
True Bird explained the situation to Luo Yuan.
Luo Yuan sighed. "Emmm…"
He had always been focused on spending and hadn't paid much attention to Rocket's finances. Listening to True Bird now, he realized the situation was indeed dire.
Considering himself the unofficial second-in-command of Team Rocket, Luo Yuan decided it was time to act.
After all, he had won the battle against Lance and Agatha. Since when did the victor end up losing the most?
"Do you know where the League is keeping the confiscated items?"
"They're still secured under the Game Corner's base," True Bird replied.
Noticing the look on Luo Yuan's face, she opened her mouth to speak—
But Luo Yuan gave her an "OK" sign, signaling her not to worry, as Mewtwo placed a hand on his shoulder.
In the blink of an eye, they were both gone from the airship.
Left alone in the office once again, True Bird had been about to tell him that if they could just weather this period, things would stabilize. With the Mewtwo Project no longer draining funds, the financial pressure on Team Rocket was already starting to ease.
But seeing Luo Yuan already out of sight, she quietly swallowed her words.
Picking up the phone on her desk, she instructed, "Keep a close watch on Celadon City and the League's activities. Inform me the instant there's any movement."
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