Eat Pikachu's hot air, Team Rocket!
Still on their way to Olivine City, Ash and the gang encounter a strange circle with X on the ground. Suddenly, something pops out of the sky and lands in front of Ash and co. Then somebody yells "Sorry!". The one who yells is Skyler a boy in a Fearow hot-air balloon. He explains that the ball is marker and he tries to center it in the X.Skyler then introduces Ash and friends to his father. He tells them there will be a big hot-air balloon competition with grand prize new burner. Ash wants to compete but forgets he hasn't got a balloon. Skyler's father give them a Pikachu balloon.Team Rocket want to steal the burner to make their escape faster but Meowth want to win it fair and square. Will our heroes win? Will Team Rocket cheat? And why does Meowth want to win it fairly so much?
Tropes
- Berserk Button: Pikachu is not happy when one of Team Rocket's missiles injures Ash's shoulder.
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Team Rocket as usual, though Meowth tried his damndest to race properly.
- Everyone Has Standards: See Serious Business below; Meowth just wants to win the engine fairly but his human partners just want the engine itself and don't care about fairness.
- Feathered Fiend: Averted with Skyler's Fearow, one of the few times in the anime that the flying Pokémon has been portrayed in a positive light.
- Serious Business: Air Ballooning is this for Meowth, to the point where he insists that Team Rocket does everything by the book in order to win fairly. Too bad Jessie and James don't share this sentiment.
- Token Good Teammate: Meowth. He refuses to cheat and tries to win entirely on his own skill. He even takes issue with Jessie and James attacking the twerps at one point.
- You Can Talk?: In a rare post-Kanto moment, the registration man is taken aback when he sees that Meowth can talk (even though he quickly goes along with it).
