Night was a silent hunter, and Team Rocket's most faithful ally.
The blizzard above the Seafoam Islands was fiercer than expected. Lead-gray clouds hung low, as though they would swallow the entire island into chaos. Snowflakes no longer drifted gently down, but became countless tiny blades of ice, lashing every exposed surface amid the howling wind. For ordinary people, these were lethal conditions, but for the two Team Rocket assault squads lurking outside the poachers' camp, the foul weather was the perfect curtain.
They were the elite of the elite. Every member was like a stone merged with the night, without a sound of breathing or a wasted movement. They lay prone in the snow, covered in specially made white camouflage cloth, almost indistinguishable from their surroundings. The blizzard masked their scent and swallowed the faint sounds of their movements. Like hungry wolves on a snowfield, their eyes pierced the storm, fixed firmly on the brightly lit camp nearby.
Inside the camp, the poachers were clearly unaware of their situation. They gathered around the bonfire, loudly boasting about the day's "harvest." Their crude laughter and curses, along with the clear clinking of bottles, were faintly audible even through the snowy night. They thought themselves impregnable, unaware that death was already knocking at their door.
The captains of both squads raised their wrists at the same time. The cold, glowing digits on their tactical watches ticked toward the scheduled attack, second by second. Three, two, one.
The countdown reached zero.
Two muffled explosions erupted almost simultaneously in two different corners of the camp. They were not loud, sounding like two enormous blocks of ice falling from a height. The thick snow and raging wind absorbed them perfectly, arousing not the slightest suspicion among the drunken poachers.
In the southeastern corner of