Red and Blue are probably grateful that they only have two people controlling them, unlike in the Twitch series.
The boys would have continued on their way to Saffron City after defeating Erika. Instead, the fact that a Team Rocket grunt was wandering around town was enough of a distraction.
"The other channelers weren't hurt until we knocked the ghosts out of them," Blue said when he brought up investigating. "I'm sure Leaf won't mind letting us get some extra experience in."
Red agreed that it would make defeating Sabrina and chasing the ghost out of Leaf's brain easier. So the two of them followed the Rocket grunt all the way to the Game Corner.
"Probably has a gambling problem," Blue said, and started to turn away. "It's not our problem."
Red almost agreed. Then he looked through the window, and saw something that put a new light on the situation. "Is that other guy guarding a poster?"
"He's not, you moron," Blue said immediately, a reflex more than a statement. He looked through the window, and immediately corrected himself. "He IS guarding a poster! That's stupid!"
"Unless he's guarding something behind the poster." Red knew he didn't want to go down this path without a partner he knew and trusted. He also knew that Blue was the best he could get at the moment. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"That we should tell Erika that Team Rocket turned one of her city's biggest tourist attractions into a base?"
"Are you stupid?" Red smacked his companion on the back of the head, a little harder than a usual friendly tease. "Erika won't get involved! She banned guys from the Gym so she'd only have to do half the required work!"
"What do you want us to do?" Blue snapped back. "We're ELEVEN! I followed you because I wanted to get your sister back and get some superpowers while I'm at it! I didn't sign up for Team Rocket garbage!"
"Neither did I! Do you think I wanted to even MEET these people? You've seen their excuse for a villain song! But I have to do this, and you have to help me!"
"Why, though?"
"Because we're heroes," Red stated, with so much certainty that Blue instantly believed him. "And heroes always step up to fight the villains."
The boys stood in silence for a bit longer.
"So how do you suggest we get in?" Blue asked eventually. He used the same tone he'd used when suggesting cross-dressing – something that contained the message 'This is going to suck, but it's going to be hilarious.'
"You won't have to wear a dress," Red promised. Blue took his turn slapping him. "Seriously, though. I know enough to make a plan…"
No one looked twice at a pair of preteens walking into the Game Corner. It must have been a normal occurrence, or at least not as unusual as Red would have thought. Still, they did manage to get a few weird looks when they approached the Rochet grunt instead of the counter.
The grunt wasn't someone Red had encountered before. He knew, not because the man didn't look like every other grunt he'd met so far, but because the man didn't recognize him.
"Get out of here, kid!" the grunt snapped when Red got too close. "Can't you see I'm busy here?"
"I just wanna look at the poster!" Red hoped he didn't sound suspicious as he attempted to look over the grunt's shoulder.
"Get your stupid nose-picking fingers off it!" The grunt immediately went to his Pokeball, sending out a Raticate to get rid of the boy.
Red, not bothered in the slightest, released Psyduck. As the grunt laughed at the ridiculousness of using a Psyduck in battle at all, Red knew from experience that the Pokémon was not as confused as appearances and TV would lead people to believe. "Destroy it," he said simply, and Psyduck immediately unleashed a Water Pulse that damaged not only the Raticate, but the poster itself.
Just as Red suspected, the poster hid a switch, and Blue ran up and flipped it when the grunt was focused on the battle. "You want to investigate now, or…?"
"Go on without me," Red told him. "I'm getting practice in for Saffron!"
Blue nodded and rushed off. The grunt, terrified, chased after him, forfeiting the match in order to chase an intruder. Red, seeing no chance of continuing, called Psyduck back and followed.
Where there was desperation, there were other Rocket grunts. And where there were Rocket grunts, there was experience waiting for them.
Taking the stairs, naturally, led to the Team Rocket base, where the boys found themselves cornered by several Rocket grunts. Sometimes they claimed that they were here to see about joining Team Junior Rocket, so the boss's son could have minions of his own. Usually, they just challenged them all to battle and won.
What made it even worse, and hard to plan, was a long series of tiles that spun them around and launched them like living tops, leaving them dizzy and unable to plan. Blue might have even thrown up, not that he'd admit to it.
"Why don't any of them give us a map!" Blue whined as he followed behind Red. "We talked enough of them into letting us pass! You'd think that they would have maps to lead new recruits through this place!"
Red was not amused. "You seem to forget that Team Rocket is the opposite of intelligent."
"Who says we're not intelligent?" a grunt demanded. "We're intelligent! We designed this floor plan!"
"You do know that just proves my point, don't you?"
"I'll show you!" The grunt threw out a ball. "Koffing, let's go!"
"Do I have to?" Red complained.
"I can if you don't," Blue promised. "But it's less experience for Saffron."
Well, that was enough reason for Red. "Diglett, let's go!"
Getting possessed against her will was not comfortable, but Leaf was adjusting. So what if Marowak left her sprawled on the floor like a rejected rag doll? At least the bruises were the extent of everyone's injuries.
Of course, having Mr. Fuji there with her helped, and the constant Cubone cuddles – he liked hugging his mom, even if she was inhabiting an inexperienced channeler at the time. Fuji had started taking care of her Pokémon, too, as they refused to listen to her even when she was herself, out of fear that they would be listening to someone other than their trainer and betraying her trust. At least Fuji didn't give them orders.
"Good to have you back with us," Mr. Fuji said with a smile, holding out the sandwich he'd made with the groceries Marowak had used her to get. "I'm not sure she knows exactly what humans like to eat, but she's collected enough for us to put something together."
Leaf groaned and sat up, giving Cubone the opportunity to hop right onto her lap. She cringed. "I think I'd prefer Jigglypuff right now. I'm not your mom at the moment, but I am Jigglypuff's trainer."
Fuji flinched, like Leaf had insulted the tiny baby, but Cubone was smart. He reached for Jigglypuff and pulled her over, giving Leaf the chance to cuddle both at once. "There. She's here. Now you can't complain."
"Don't you get enough of Leaf when she IS your mom?" Jigglypuff complained. "And why can't your mom use a different channeler?"
"We should ask her that," Cubone said bluntly. "It's not like she's breaking your trainer."
"Is it normal to be this tired?" Leaf asked almost immediately after. "I've been sleeping, right?"
"When you sleep is when she takes over," Fuji answered, sounding like he was regretting it himself. But he wasn't involved, was he? "She uses you to patrol the area, looking for Team Rocket. I don't think she'll stop until she can make sure her child is safe."
"And she hasn't found them yet? Doesn't that mean you can escape while they're gone?"
Mr. Fuji looked down at Cubone, then back at Leaf. "I could," he said, "but I would regret leaving the two of you behind. I don't want any more regrets."
"You won't regret wasting your time here with us? I mean, Marowak is keeping me alive, she needs me. And Cubone needs me as a link to his mother."
"It isn't a regret," Mr. Fuji promised. "After all, Marowak seems to barely understand human taste buds. She must not have had a lot of human food in the wild."
"Can't see why she would."
The two ate their sandwiches in silence. The silence was broken by Leaf. "How long have we been stuck here? Days? Weeks?"
"Not long," Fuji promised.
"Just long enough to need a shower, then," Leaf grumbled, and took another angry bite.
She really hoped Red and Blue could figure out a way to beat the ghost. She didn't want to die of sleep deprivation.
By the time Red and Blue fought their way through the secret base, they were tired, angry, and just wanted to get on with their lives. Unfortunately, Team Rocket was not willing to just let them go, at least not without joining.
Still, when they got through a door guarded by two grunts, they expected to see the Team Rocket boss. They weren't wrong about that.
What they were wrong about was that the boss, a man they imagined as a figure shadowed in mystery, was talking on a cell phone to an unknown person.
"What do you mean, the boy's my problem now?" the crime boss complained, sounding almost horrified. "He's nine, what could he possibly do?" The other person said something that stopped the anger, and then he sounded impressed. "Stole your Pokémon, you say? Well, then, that's different. Tell him he did a good job, that I'm proud of him, steal your Pokémon back, and take him to steal something else."
"He's teaching his son how to steal Pokémon?" Blue whispered, horrified.
"Why do you think we got as far as we did?" Red shrugged. "Team Rocket's a family business."
The boss stopped at the sound of their voices, quiet as they were. "It's still your turn," he told the phone, as his eyes locked on the boys barely older than his own. "You deal with him. I have my own pest problem to work out."
He ended the call before the person watching his son could object, and immediately shifted into the man that the young intruders imagined he would be. "I must say I'm impressed that you made it this far."
"They pointed us in the right direction when we mentioned we wanted to join," Blue explained.
"You want to join, do you?" He gestured to his desk, where a stack of job applications were placed for anyone brave and stupid enough to want to join a life of crime. "I am Giovanni, leader of Team Rocket. You're a bit young for field work, but in a few years you might make grunt status."
"We have a complaint, actually." Red pulled out his copy of the villain song video. "Are you aware that none of your members have any songwriting talent whatsoever? If anything, I would have gone for a parody of Prince Ali from Aladdin if you weren't going for what was originally a villain song."
"I actually think Be Prepared would have been better," Blue added. "Or Gaston from Beauty and the Beast."
"Which were the third and second worst villain song parodies in our universe," Red pointed out. Blue shrugged, acknowledging the point. "But it's not like we could expect another Mother Knows Best or anything."
"I liked My Lullaby," Blue said with a large grin.
Giovanni hid his face in his hands. "Look, kid. Songwriting isn't part of the job description. Sometimes I'm dragged into insanity, but let it be known that I had nothing to do with THAT parody. I don't even WATCH Disney movies."
"You're a dad," Red pointed out.
"A dad who has a nanny and a plan for world domination."
A nanny, a plan for world domination, and a very good point. "Look, we're not here to join. We're here to kick you out of Celadon City so we can go back to Lavender Town and deal with what happened in the tower."
Giovanni went quiet, and the anger in his eyes made it clear that the boys weren't likely to live long. "I can't let you go," he decided out loud. "If you aren't here to join us, then you are trespassing."
Blue snorted. "What are you gonna do? Call the cops?"
"Don't be stupid." Giovanni reached for his Pokémon, and it wasn't long before the two were facing an Onix. "I'm going to crush you into silence through battle!"
Red and Blue made eye contact. Then, with a mocking bow, Blue let Red have fun.
"Let's go, Ralph!"