The first time it happens is on Cycling Road.
There's a gang of them. Bikers. Cue Balls. Adults. They knock Red off his bike too fast after he wins the last battle, one grabbing his wrists before he can call out his pokémon again to protect him. Pikachu could get out of its ball without his help usually, but Pikachu fainted earlier, after one of their Weezing used Explosion as a last resort. Red thinks savagely to himself (while he fights barehanded, clawing, kicking) that a move like that is nothing more than a dirty underhanded trick. It's not worth it, never worth it, to hurt your own pokémon just to hurt somebody else's. He'd claw the man's eyes out for it if he could, if he could go back ten minutes in time and do it over again, but now they've got him trapped and they're not going to give him another chance. That's what he gets for playing fair.
The gangsters laugh at him—laugh at him while he struggles, and one of them mentions offhandedly how Red's little dinky collapsible bike isn't worth stealing anyway. Another one says, well then, he'll have to pay the toll some other way, won't he. All Red can spit out in reply is that he spent all his money in Celadon, and he's not lying to them but he really wishes he was, because, well. He already has a horrible feeling, what else he has, what else they could possibly want to take from him.
He used to enjoy always being right. That was before he became a trainer, way before, when he was a kid—he might be eleven now but Red knows damn well he's no longer a kid. He doesn't like having the answers at all anymore and being too smart for his own good, not when it never brings him any help and gets him too much attention he doesn't like.
Three of the men leave disgusted when they figure out what's coming, and it's kind of sad that Red knew before they did, but it's not like it's really important, so. It's not the kind of disgusted that compels people to interfere so it's really no help whatsoever as far as he's concerned. Two stay, which is what actually matters. Biker and a cue ball. The cue ball is carrying a whip and shit if that doesn't make Red scared—more scared.
As soon as the others leave there's a pair of too-large hands changing their grip on him, like he's some kind of doll you can just puppet around. Bruising. Grabbing. Holding. He can't tell the two men apart. Shoved against the side of the parked motorcycle, and then there are calloused fingers pulling on his clothes and Red bites and screams and thinks frantically to himself the whole time why me, why does this happen to me, am I doing this, am I the one who's doing something to make people act like this?
Because truth of it is—and here is the worst part—it's not actually the first time this has happened to Red, not technically.
The difference is, this is only the first time he wasn't lucky enough to get away.