[Lance: Oh? Is Ash's Bayleef really this deeply attached to him? I honestly couldn't tell back during the Silver Conference!]
[Caitlin: Ash's charm completely sweeps every female off their feet! Whether they're a Pokémon or a human!]
[Steven: Let's add a small caveat there—at least they need to have actually met Ash first. Otherwise, it's no longer a matter of personality charm~]
Everyone joked back and forth. No one expected that Ash wouldn't just be incredibly popular with human girls, but that he also had quite the following among female Pokémon!
Between Bayleef and Latias alone, who knew how many more hidden admirers hadn't even shown up yet! If he ever met a Gardevoir… everyone wondered if Ash would finally catch on!
...
In the footage—
After the initial excitement of their reunion quieted down, Ash spent some quality time playing with Bayleef and his other Pokémon. Between his recent high-intensity training sessions and the massive crisis with Eternatus, it was the perfect time to kick back and relax!
An hour later…
Pikachu was playing a game of hide-and-seek with Gengar nearby. He darted into a thick bush to hide, only to find an Eevee already tucked away inside the exact same spot!
Chloe happened to come looking for Ash during her school recess, arriving just in time to see a startled Pikachu pop out of the grass, closely followed by the little Eevee.
From the very first moment Chloe laid eyes on Eevee, she felt a sudden tug in her heart, as if she had just encountered a being destined to be in her life.
She approached Eevee with gentle, careful steps and reached out to stroke its head. Eevee wasn't shy at all; instead, it happily rubbed its face against Chloe's hands.
"Where did this Eevee come from? Aren't Eevee usually supposed to be incredibly rare?"
"Pika, pika~" Pikachu shrugged his shoulders, looking just as bewildered. If he had known it was in there, he wouldn't have been scared out of his skin!
Chloe then scooped up Eevee and led Pikachu over to Ash, who was still playing with the rest of his team.
"Ash, do you have any idea where this Eevee came from? Do you think it belongs to the school?"
"Huh… I've never seen it around here before! Hey Eevee, do you have a trainer?" Ash asked, utilizing his Aura to speak directly to the Pokémon.
Eevee shook its head like a rattle. Honestly, even without using Aura, its body language made its answer crystal clear—it didn't have a trainer.
However, before Chloe could even celebrate the good news, two loud voices echoed from across the grounds.
"Eevee!"
"Eevee, where did you go? Come back with us right now!"
Two men dressed in white lab coats were shouting in the distance, holding what looked like a large capture net. The moment Eevee heard them, it instantly buried itself deep into Chloe's arms, trembling and refusing to show its face.
"What's wrong, Eevee? Are those two bad guys?"
"Vee~" Eevee nodded emphatically from the safety of Chloe's embrace.
Ash's expression hardened as he flared his Aura to scan the area. But a second later, a bizarre look crossed his face. Through the emotional signatures of the two men, he didn't detect even a single shred of malice. Aura never lied, which meant… was this little Eevee pulling a fast one on them?
...
[Norman: Haha! Ash is probably thinking, 'I didn't expect to have a literal cheat code!' The power of Aura completely busts any scam right open!]
[Professor Oak: That boy only uses his Aura on rare occasions. Otherwise, how could he constantly get fooled by Team Rocket's terrible disguises!]
[Flint: To be fair, let me say a word in their defense—their disguise skills are actually top-tier.]
[Wallace: Exactly. Just look at the screen—those three pretending to be students are definitely the Team Rocket trio, right? You'd never guess they're pushing thirty!]
[Jessie: !!!! Hey! Who are you saying is thirty!! I am strictly in my glorious twenties!]
Inside a shop near the Indigo Plateau:
James and Meowth expertly grabbed Jessie, holding her back before she could start blasting the screen with fury.
"Alright, calm down! It's been four or five years since then in the footage, so we really are pushing thirty over there…"
"What. Did. You. Just. Say?!" Jessie's vibrant red hair flared out behind her like an exploding chili pepper. If James uttered another syllable, he would likely be checking into a hospital by sunset!
"Ahem, nothing, nothing at all…"
"Yeah, never talk about a lady's age~" Meowth nodded quickly, before turning a gloomy face toward the massive mountain of unsold merchandise in front of them. "That being said… Now that the Indigo Plateau Conference is officially over, nobody is buying anything, dig it!"
"We can't help that. Once a tournament ends, the hype naturally plummets…" James sighed, their attention was successfully diverted back to their financial woes.
They had planned to make an absolute killing today! To their utter dismay, the foot traffic this afternoon had dropped down more than tenfold.
Only then did they remember that the tournament had fully concluded! But they had already ordered a massive stock of goods. While they hadn't technically lost money yet, they certainly weren't making the massive profit they had envisioned.
...
In the footage—
The disguised students mentioned by Wallace and the others were indeed the Team Rocket trio! Their target was naturally the abundance of Pokémon playing in the school park.
However, since Ash had been hanging around the area the entire time, they had been scratching their heads trying to figure out a clean way to snatch them.
And right now, their golden opportunity had arrived!
Because Chloe wanted to protect Eevee from the two men, she and Ash temporarily sprinted away from the park.
Team Rocket immediately seized the moment, pulling out their specialized nets to round up the remaining Pokémon in the area!
Naturally, Ash's main team members weren't among the captured group; Team Rocket's custom traps were strictly designed to handle Pikachu, and they lacked the immediate technical capacity to restrain the rest of Ash's high-tier roster.
On the other side of the grounds, Ash hadn't really understood why he was running away with Chloe in the first place; he had simply bolted the moment she told him they needed to move.
But thinking about it afterward, if Eevee genuinely didn't want to go with those two men, there had to be a reason—at the very least, those two definitely weren't its owners.
Looking down at Eevee, who was acting incredibly affectionate toward Chloe, Ash was suddenly reminded of his very first day with Pikachu.
Although their initial meeting hadn't been seamless, there had been an undeniable sense of destiny. The exact same energy seemed to surround Chloe and Eevee right now. Perhaps… this was the Pokémon Chloe was fated to meet?
Of course, regardless of fate, the Pokémon technically belonged to an official institution. Even if Chloe wanted to catch it, they still needed to obtain permission from the researchers.
Determined to protect her new friend, Chloe skipped the rest of her classes entirely, shifting straight into truant mode! But given the finite layout of the school grounds, she and Ash eventually bumped right into the two men in lab coats.
Spotting Eevee in Chloe's arms, the researchers looked incredibly anxious to get it back. Even though Ash's Aura confirmed they meant no harm, their frantic behavior looked highly suspicious to an outside observer.
"Who on earth are you two supposed to be?"
"Prepare for trouble, because we're about to tell you exactly who we are!"
The answering voice didn't come from the two researchers in front of Ash, but from right behind him! Ash and Chloe spun around at the familiar reciting of the lines, immediately spotting a large net full of captured Pokémon ready for transport—alongside the frozen Team Rocket trio!
Hearing someone ask a question, Jessie had subconsciously blurted out her standard intro lines out of pure habit. The result… an instant self-report! They were caught red-handed!
"You guys are…"
"Since you've seen through us, we won't bother hiding it!" With a dramatic flourish, the trio ripped off their student uniforms to reveal their classic uniforms.
"What?! Team Rocket?! What are you guys even doing here!"
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