Under cover of night, Team Rocket's massive submarine fleet arrived like ghosts, silently reaching a hidden harbor at the edge of the Johto Region that appeared on no map.
This was a forward base that Team Rocket had secretly established through years of painstaking work.
The fleet rested and resupplied here, making its final preparations for the coming large-scale operation.
Ye Li did not rest.
He shut himself in the Command Room and, through encrypted satellite communications, contacted a network of influence belonging entirely to him that he had previously laid in secret in the Kanto Region.
"Activate the 'Vermilion' plan."
His order was brief and cold.
Beneath the prosperous facade of Vermilion City, the largest port city in the Kanto Region, lay a vast, chaotic underworld made up of countless gangs, smugglers, and information brokers.
Ye Li had long since used Team Rocket's funds and his own almost prophetic intelligence capabilities to secretly build up one of its inconspicuous little gangs.
After receiving another enormous injection of funding from Ye Li.
Like a shark pumped full of stimulants, the gang began unleashing a bloody storm of consolidation in Vermilion City's underworld.
They bought people off with money and absorbed others through violence, firmly seizing control of the entire Johto Region's intelligence channels in just a few days.
A constant stream of classified intelligence about the Johto Region's various cities, Gyms, and even Pokémon League garrisons flowed through this secret channel onto Ye Li's desk.
Just as Ye Li was working at a feverish pace to put his plans in place for the coming war.
In the submarine's laboratory, Engineer Wang's team encountered a new problem in their in-depth analysis of the three orbs.
"Lord Ye Li, the situation isn't good."
There was a hint of gravity on Engineer Wang's