A narrow escape

Seeing that Su Bai really was about to leave, Team Rocket panicked.

"Wait, wait, wait, twerp!"

"Please, you can't just leave us here to die!"

James and Meowth each grabbed one of Su Bai's legs.

Although Jessie didn't want to beg in front of Cassidy, her life was at stake now. She dared not protest and knelt on the ground to plead for help.

Their only Pokémon were Ekans, Koffing, and Meowth, while Cassidy and Butch had only a Raticate. They simply had no way to escape this sea of flames.

Fallen dead trees had blocked every route out. They had tried all sorts of things, but nothing worked.

Boom! Boom!

Two more trees collapsed, cutting off their last hope of getting out.

Su Bai wiped the sweat from his forehead. He felt as though he was about to be roasted alive.

With a fire this fierce, even if Pikachu used Surf, they would burn to death long before it cleared a path.

Su Bai had Pikachu use Surf on everyone, soaking them from head to toe, then moved to recall Pikachu into its Pokémon Ball.

"Pika, pika!"

"Hee hee hee! (Pikachu says it doesn't want to go inside. It wants to stay with you!)"

"Be good, Pikachu!"

Su Bai put on a stern face to intimidate Pikachu, then took out its Pokémon Ball and recalled the aggrieved little Pokémon.

He was afraid Pikachu would suffer burns in this heat.

Su Bai didn't dare have Gengar use Rain Dance recklessly. A move wasn't actual weather, and Gengar wasn't yet powerful enough to control the weather through its moves.

A small-scale Rain Dance could help fight the fire from outside, but this deep in the inferno, the rain would probably evaporate before it reached the ground.

The resulting scalding steam would be even more dangerous.

"Gengar, can you carry all of us out with Psychic?"

Gengar glanced at the group and shook its head dejectedly.

Lifting a few people with Psychic and throwing them out would have been effortless.

Or, with fewer people-just Su Bai, for instance-Gengar could have carried him safely out a dozen times without anyone noticing.

But they were deep inside the blaze. It would have to lift all these people high enough to avoid being burned, then carry them across a vast sea of flames.

That was too difficult.

"Hee hee hee! (Kid, these two and that Meowth seem decent. Those two in black over there don't look like good people. Just leave them.)"

Gengar's position was clear: saving only Jessie's trio would be no problem.

But if Cassidy and Butch were included, Gengar couldn't make any promises.

In a situation like this, Gengar didn't dare carry them out without being completely certain of success.

Su Bai looked at Cassidy and Butch, then at Jessie's trio.

The heat around them kept intensifying. Even the air he breathed felt scorching.

"You're getting off easy, Team Rocket. You're escaping punishment yet again!"

Su Bai released Pikachu again and pointed at Meowth's trio.

"Pikachu, Thunderbolt!"

Team Rocket, let's see whether those conceptual abilities of yours can save you.

"Pi-ka-chu!"

Pikachu had no idea what was going on, but Su Bai had given the order. Without hesitation, it blasted the Team Rocket Trio with Thunderbolt.

With a deafening explosion, the three members of Team Rocket were scorched black and became a shooting star on the horizon.

"Dragon Nation twerp, thank you!"

"We'll never forget this kindness, meow!"

"Even though the Dragon Nation twerp sent us blasting off again, somehow it feels..."

"So wonderful!" all three cried.

Thankfully, those three idiots were as dependable as ever.

Su Bai recalled Pikachu and glanced at Cassidy and Butch.

"Old Ghost, get us out of here. Psychic."

"Gengar, gen!"

Gengar gave it everything it had. Blue light enveloped everyone as they soared into the air, practically hurled out of the burning Ten Directions Mountains.

Once they reached the outskirts and were about to hit the ground, Gengar used Psychic again to catch Su Bai.

Cassidy and Butch received no such treatment. They landed face-first in the dirt.

Of course, neither dared complain. They had made it out, after all.

"Thank you, handsome young man. Well, Butcho and I will be going now."

"Haven't I told you my name is Butch?"

"Stop wasting time and move! If the Dragon Nation Police get here, we'll never be able to explain this."

Those two idiots thought Su Bai couldn't understand the Kanto language and conversed openly in it.

"Old Ghost, Hypnosis!"

Gengar floated into their path and began waving its arms before Cassidy and Butch could react.

Both collapsed on the spot.

After Su Bai questioned them thoroughly, Cassidy and Butch confessed every detail of their crimes.

His suspicions had been correct. Team Rocket really was involved in this incident.

It all began when Jessie and James failed their mission and had no choice but to sell ice cream at a stall.

Once the trio had saved enough money, they wanted to stir up trouble again. They gathered materials and built a Pokémon Attraction Machine, hoping to use it to lure out powerful Pokémon from the Ten Directions Mountains.

Then they ran into Cassidy and Butch, who had come to carry out a mission.

Those two were close associates of Team Rocket's Dr. Namba. Determined to uncover the secret behind the diversity of Pokémon in the Dragon Nation, he had sent them there to collect soil and water samples.

Cassidy and Butch had a good eye, immediately setting their sights on the Ten Directions Mountains, which were exceptionally rich in wild Pokémon.

When the two groups met there, Jessie and Cassidy exchanged a few barbs.

At the time, the Team Rocket Trio still outranked those two idiots. Unable to win the argument, Cassidy decided to sabotage Jessie.

So that foolish woman had her Pokémon destroy Jessie's Pokémon Attraction Machine, which started the fire.

"Hmph! I knew it!"

Su Bai ordered Gengar to alter their memories, removing all traces of his involvement and leaving them with only the memory of being rescued by a wild Gengar.

His Old Ghost excelled at frightening people with illusions. After all this training, its proficiency with Hypnosis and Confuse Ray had improved by leaps and bounds.

Unless Qi Shijun's Gardevoir personally probed them with psychic powers, Su Bai was confident that Wang Officer Jenny couldn't detect the tampering with her abilities.

Besides, probing memories with psychic powers could damage the brain.

The Dragon Nation put people first, and using psychic powers to search memories during interrogations was forbidden. Su Bai had merely taken an extra precaution.

Then Gengar picked them up and flew high into the sky.

Wang Officer Jenny was directing her officers as they set up a cordon when two human meat pies suddenly dropped from above.

As a member of the Officer Jenny Family, she was all too familiar with those Team Rocket uniforms.

Recalling how suddenly and suspiciously the wildfire had started, Wang Officer Jenny immediately suspected these two were responsible. Without so much as a warning, she ordered the Growlithe to tackle them.