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In the central valley of the Seafoam Islands, Team Rocket members were gathering together in organized groups.
"Excellent work! We've located Articuno's position. Everyone, assemble here immediately!"
The person in charge of this operation, Team Rocket's leader Harley, was constantly directing members to gather at the designated location.
"Master Harley! The team members are making their way to this location as we speak! However, some of our members are stationed in more remote areas of the island, so they'll arrive a bit later!"
A junior captain was reporting the current situation to Harley with a respectful tone.
"Tell them to pick up the pace. We have no idea when this foolish bird might decide to fly away. We need everyone here now!"
"Understood! I'll relay the message for them to hurry."
Watching the junior captain work on gathering the scattered members, Harley nodded with satisfaction before shifting his attention toward the center of the canyon.
In the middle of the valley lay a massive block of ice that radiated waves of frigid air. Upon closer inspection, one could actually make out the form of a beautiful blue giant bird frozen within the ice.
The magnificent blue bird possessed stunning azure feathers and a crown made of three dark blue prismatic feathers adorning its head, along with piercing red eyes that seemed to gaze outward even through the ice.
It also had a long, flowing tail that resembled a colorful flag, extending longer than the bird's entire body and sharing the same shade as its crown feathers.
This was Articuno, one of the legendary bird Pokémon.
Articuno was indeed a legendary Pokémon, but it exhibited rather peculiar behavior.
This legendary bird was not fond of combat, and whenever it sensed the presence of enemies or danger, it would immediately encase itself in ice as a defensive measure.
It wasn't without good reason that Harley had just called it a foolish bird. Such a bizarre defensive strategy from a divine beast was certainly unusual enough to warrant such criticism.
"However, I suppose we should acknowledge that it truly is a legendary Pokémon. Even though its behavior is quite foolish, its actual power is undeniably real. We have absolutely no method of thawing this ice block at all."
That was correct—Harley currently had no way to melt the ice, which was precisely why he had called for reinforcements.
They had only just discovered Articuno when the legendary bird noticed them approaching with clear hostile intent. Whether it sensed something dangerous about them or simply adopted an ostrich-like mentality of hiding from threats, Articuno had frozen itself solid without any warning, leaving Team Rocket completely helpless.
No matter how much they attacked the ice with Fire-type moves, hot water, or other heating methods, they couldn't even begin to thaw it.
Articuno had essentially become like a mage from World of Warcraft who had activated an invincible ice block ability with no time limit whatsoever.
"I see, so this must be the intuition of a legendary Pokémon at work. It must have sensed the power of the Badge I'm carrying, which is why it froze itself so decisively."
Harley pulled out a badge from his pocket—a light red badge that Koga had given to him.
This was not one of the replica badges that the League manufactured for gym challengers. This was an authentic Badge, or more accurately, a Primal Badge.
In the early days of the Pokémon League, sixteen badges had been excavated from ancient ruins in the Johto Region. These sixteen badges were actually the original badges that belonged to the sixteen gym leaders of the current Kanto Region and Johto Region.
Initially, the League had studied these badges extensively, but they only discovered that the badges seemed to contain some form of energy that they couldn't understand or identify. Since they couldn't find any other significant effects, they decided to give them directly to the respective gym leaders, and thus the sixteen gym leaders came to possess these Primal Badges.
As for the badges that were awarded to challengers, those were actually imitations manufactured by the League. They served no real purpose other than their symbolic significance and granting permission to participate in the Indigo Plateau Conference.
However, just because the League couldn't uncover anything meaningful from their research didn't mean that other organizations would fail as well.
Team Rocket had successfully researched the hidden power within the Primal Badges and discovered how to utilize them properly.
The power of the badges, or rather the true purpose of the Primal Badges, was actually designed to work specifically against legendary Pokémon.
Namely, to suppress the power of legendary Pokémon and forcibly control them!
That was the true power contained within the Primal Badges.
For this reason, Team Rocket felt confident and bold enough to attempt capturing the three legendary birds.
Of course, during Team Rocket's research into the Badges, they had uncovered certain documents regarding the eight Badges from the Kanto Region specifically.
These documents revealed that these eight Badges actually only functioned properly on the three legendary birds and the so-called "Sea God."
In other words, the eight Primal Badges from the Kanto Region could only be effectively used against these four legendary Pokémon.
What about the Badges from the Johto Region? Unfortunately, there were no Team Rocket members serving as gym leaders in that region, so they couldn't study those badges at this time.
In any case, now that Team Rocket possessed the Primal Badges, they felt supremely confident in executing their operation to capture the three legendary birds.
What's that? You're wondering how the three Team Rocket executives plus Giovanni, with only four badges between them, could possibly control three legendary birds? Doesn't that seem problematic?
Actually, Team Rocket possessed more than just four badges. Because Team Rocket had successfully infiltrated numerous operatives into the League's ranks, they had already secured all eight Primal Badges from the Kanto Region.
Currently, aside from the four gym leaders who were secretly Team Rocket members, the badges held by the other four gym leaders were sophisticated fakes. Team Rocket had already obtained all eight authentic badges.
"Right now I only have one Badge in my possession, but even that should be sufficient to suppress Articuno's power. Even if it's a legendary beast, once its power has been suppressed, it will be roughly equivalent to an ordinary Pokémon."
"But this creature actually went and froze itself solid. It seems that it realized I was carrying a Badge, which prompted such a desperate defensive measure."
Harley stared at the frozen Articuno with clear dissatisfaction etched across his face.
Originally, as long as they could successfully suppress Articuno's power, Team Rocket could leverage their overwhelming numerical advantage to gradually wear down the weakened legendary Pokémon until it was defeated.
But now that Articuno had encased itself in ice, Harley was forced to gather all the operatives stationed across the island and concentrate everyone's strength to either break through or thaw Articuno's protective ice block.
Only by accomplishing that could they proceed with their operation to capture the legendary bird.
And so, Harley waited for nearly half an hour before all the Team Rocket members stationed on the island had finally assembled at the designated location.
"Master Harley! With the exception of a few individuals who were injured during sneak attacks by wild Pokémon, virtually everyone has been gathered here! Please issue your next orders, sir!"
The junior captain reported to Harley respectfully, and Harley nodded with clear satisfaction.
However, just as he was about to issue his next command, an extremely cold and threatening voice suddenly rang out from somewhere above their heads.
"Hmm... everyone's gathered in one convenient spot. It looks like I've arrived at exactly the right time."
After those words echoed across the valley, almost every single Team Rocket member instinctively raised their heads and looked up toward the sky.
High above them, they could see a man flying through the air while riding on a Charizard, looking down at them with a battle-hungry smile spreading across his face.
"You're Team Rocket, correct? Now then, get down on the ground and surrender, or I'll personally beat you all down myself."
Eddie wore his signature gloves and released all the Pokémon from both Team One and Team Two, speaking with a 'smile' that sent shivers down every Team Rocket member's spine.