While Team Rocket underwent a bloody internal purge and a transfer of power, and Ye Li gradually sank into the web of comfort Giovanni had so carefully woven for him, a long-brewing storm quietly took shape at the Kanto League's headquarters.
The Pokémon League's patience had run out. A fierce, precise counterattack against Team Rocket, that increasingly rampant cancer, had begun.
After weeks of secret recruitment, intelligence gathering, and tactical simulations, the Special Operations Group led by the Ice-type Elite Four member Lorelei finally made its first strike.
Their targets were not Team Rocket's heavily guarded, well-hidden Secret Bases. Lorelei knew perfectly well that, with the intelligence the Pokémon League currently possessed, launching a rash assault would be like throwing an egg against a rock.
Instead, she set her sights on Team Rocket's most important-and most public-"lifeline."
-the Rainbow Game Corner, with locations throughout Kanto's major cities, which supplied Team Rocket with an endless stream of funds.
Lorelei's style of warfare was just like her Ice-type Pokémon: calm, precise, and lethal. She rejected the most foolish approach of using force to shut the establishments down directly, which would easily cause social unrest and alert the enemy.
She chose a smarter, more devastating combination of blows.
A silent, overwhelming strike from the worlds of finance and cyberspace.
Inside a vast server room at the Kanto League's headquarters, its futuristic interior illuminated by the pale blue indicator lights of countless servers, the atmosphere was as taut as a drawn bowstring.
Dozens of top financial experts and cybersecurity specialists, secretly recruited by the Pokémon League from major banks, securities firms, and cybersecurity companies, sat at their computers, their fingers flying over their keyboards in a dense clatter of clicks.
"Elite Four Lorelei! We've found the first key node in the money-laundering channels! It's