Pokemon Tales Red

by Leinil

After witnessing a Pokemon League battle, Red, who until that time didn't have a plan for his life, decides to devote himself to becoming a Pokemon trainer. He soon finds out that the world is much bigger than he thought. This doesn't stop him from trying his best while also running head first into danger. There is some romance. Try reading more than one chapter before you drop it.

14. S1: Phantom Venin and the Crystal Eye

EDIT: I finally got around to putting the dots that signify scene change in this chapter. I will add them to the next two soon. Sorry if you have read this and got confused in some places.

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Before you start reading this chapter, I advise that you copy the whole thing and put it in a word document to keep track of where you left off, since it's over 30,000 words long. Unless you've got some other way to deal with long texts. Then you're free to use that. I'm just trying to help. Also, be sure to take breaks when reading. I don't want you to sue me if your eyes go bad(issa joke).

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Pokemon Tales: Red Special Chapter 1: Phantom Venin and the Crystal Eye.

Somewhere on the vast sea, a small sailboat was slowly drifting through the waves. The only passenger was a dark haired man, who could be anywhere from 15 to 30 years old, wearing swimming shorts, a straw hat and sunglasses. Although he was enjoying the sun, his mind and face were buried in a notebook which contained his plans for the day.

"Maybe I should change this part? It sort of depends on how much luck I'll have." his voice was very soft and had some kind of accent, although it was hard to tell where it came from.

He stopped for a short moment while tapping his chin with a pen until he lifted his head to the point where he was looking backwards "What do you think?"

The one he was talking to was a Clefable who at that moment walked out of the cabin carrying a tray with two drinks with straws and small umbrellas. The Pokemon gently put them on a short table which was right next to the deckchair the man was lying on before looking into the notes which were actually drawings, in case the man ever needed a help from his partners, like in that moment. After looking through a couple pages, Clefable shook his head to the sides.

"So you think it's good? Maybe I should stop worrying. We still have half a day till the whole thing. Hmm?"

After putting aside the notebook and lifting his sunglasses to the forehead, the man stood up and walked over to the rear of the boat. He focused his eyes on an object that was moving through the waves as slowly as his boat. After it got a little closer, he could finally begin to tell that it was the thing he suspected, an iceberg.

"I know these things appear around Seafoam Islands but I didn't expect to see them this close to the mainland. It's a good thing the sea is calm and the weather is clear, so we'll have no problems avoiding it."

The Clefable who stood beside him, nodded, while finishing his drink. The man heard a weird sound and turned his gaze towards the Pokemon who was covering his mouth.

"Was that a hiccup?"

Clefable tried to deny by shaking his head to the sides, but when another sound came from his mouth, his trainer sighed while grabbing the bridge of his nose.

"I told you not to add any alcohol. You better get yourself sorted out before the evening... And get me a new drink."

. . .

Meanwhile, aboard the St. Anne, Red and Green were visiting the captain in his quarters. After being handed a piece of paper, the boy in the hat was sitting in a chair and reading through it with the other one bending over and leaning on the same chair to also get a good look at the message written on the paper.

"Sooo... Who is this Phantom Venin?" Green asked while looking up at the captain.

"I guess you haven't heard of him since a lot of this stuff is kept under wraps. In short, he's a highly skilled thief who specializes in stealing items that are said to be priceless; anything from a precious rock like the Crystal Eye to works of art to fossils." the captain explained.

"And he announced that he's going to steal this particular gem." Green said to himself while rubbing his chin.

"That's one of the interesting things about him. Even though there are many other valuable items up for auction, if he declared that he's gonna still this one, we can be sure that the rest are safe from his hands." explained the captain.

"You said "one of the things". Is there anything else?" asked Red.

"Yes. Although it may sound weird, it seems he's a highly skilled magician and a master of disguise..." the captain answered.

"Well, that's not that..."

Captain interjected Red by continuing "...and he can fly."

A silence fell over the room for a couple seconds during which the teenagers were trying to process what they just heard.

Finally Green spoke up "Could you repeat?"

"Yeaaah. What do you mean by that?"

"He has wings."

Again, everyone went quiet for a short time before Red stood up and slammed his hands on the desk "Are you joking around?!"

"No, no. I'm just saying what I heard. Maybe he's just using some mechanical wings but I don't want to omit anything that could help in stopping him."

"Okay." the trainer calmed down "Do you want us to catch him?"

"As long as the Crystal Eye is safe, I don't care if he gets away."

"But won't he come for it again?" Green wondered.

"It seems that it's against his rules. Once, when trying to steal an ancient vase, he hurt his leg and couldn't run away with it, so he left it there and never returned again."

The captain reached into a drawer in his desk to take out a pipe and some tobacco. Before lighting them, he also searched for a pokeball which he put in front of himself.

"This is the Pokemon I was talking about earlier. Take it."

Green walked over to the desk, picked up the ball and attached it, in the same manner as the other ones, to his belt.

"Now... If you agree to help me deal with this Phantom Venin situation, as long as I'll know that you gave it your all, there will be a monetary prize in it for you. A bigger one, if you manage to protect the Crystal Eye."

"I'm up for it." stated Green.

Both of them turned their eyes to Red. Although he felt a little pressured, he already made his decision earlier, so he just put his thumb up as a sign of agreement.

"Marvelous!" the captain yelled while standing up, with a huge cloud of smoke escaping his mouth "Although the Phantom announced that he's gonna strike at 9, the auction stars at 7 so I want you to keep watch from that point onward. Until then you are free to do whatever you want. Each ticket has a room assigned to it in case you want to rest, clean up, change clothes or whatever..."

The captain stopped for a short while and looked like he was thinking about something.

"Do either of you have a suit?"

"I'm afraid not." responded Green.

"There's still almost over an hour before we depart so I'll quickly send someone to go rent you suits."

Green smiled lightly "You don't trust us enough to go by yourself?"

"Hmm. I'm not sure..." the captain said while walking in their direction, before swiftly pinching both of their faces.

Red fell down from surprise, while Green just turned his smile into a frown, waiting for the man to let go of his face.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I just had to make sure these weren't really well made masks."

After that, both of the boys slowly backed off towards the door.

. . .

Not too much later, somewhere in Vermilion City, Blue was stretching her arms while exiting a police station with a satisfied expression on her face. She looked into her bag. After the whole ordeal she had to go through, she made a decision to store her wallet in her inventory pad and only take it out when necessary. Since each pad had a password, most thieves wouldn't bother with trying to steal them anyway.

She immediately went against her new rule and took out her wallet which was more filled than ever. Aside from the money she got from Green, she got a lot more as a reward for bringing a couple policeman to the alley with the 2 still unconscious criminals, and also from a couple people who were grateful for getting back their stolen wallets.

"Okay. I have so much money that I should plan ahead what I'm going to do. Maybe with this I can afford to take care of more than 6 Pokemon. Or maybe I should send it to my parents?"

While pondering on what to do, she overheard a stylishly dressed couple who were just passing her and talking about the best meal they ever had and the best view they ever saw. Interested, she quickly followed them and carefully blocked their path.

"Excuse me. I overheard what you were talking about. What is this place with great food and views?"

"It's that building over there." one of them pointed to the tallest building in this part of the city "There's a really famous chef working there and you can see the city, the port and the sea. But... Forgive me for saying this but you don't look like someone who could afford to eat there."

A vein immediately appeared on Blue's forehead. It took all of her power from saying or doing something mean. Instead, she decided to walk away as quickly as possible for those peoples sake.

"I'll show them. I'm gonna go there and have the most expensive thing they serve!" overcome by rage, Blue completely stopped thinking on how to rationally spend her money.

. . .

"What is going on here?"

The mysterious man on the boat was not too happy with what was going. Even though he wanted to spend the day by relaxing before what he planned for the evening, he had to put multiple blankets on his body to shield himself from the cold. He was behind the boat's wheel trying to avoid a 6th or 7th iceberg in about an hour. He finally seemed to pass all of them, but because of that he went further into the sea than he planned and had to find a way to turn back without having to go around the icebergs yet again.

His mind wandered off towards Seafoam Islands. The legends told about a mythical bird who resided there and would sometimes create these icebergs to try to scare off potential threats. But the number was never that high. If one believed in the existence of the legendary bird, it was scary to think what was so threatening that it had to go these lengths to protect itself.

"I hope that none of these icebergs get in the way of our plan."

His words fell on empty ears because his Clefable was still in a daze from the alcohol it consumed.

. . .

Aboard the St. Anne, Red was visiting each of the places available to passengers one by one, not staying in any too long because he felt that it would be better to enjoy them with somebody. Green wasn't with him because he wanted to get himself acquainted with his new Pokemon in case it could prove to be exact monster needed to stop Phantom Venin.

After getting a good look at one of the pools from the balcony, Red slowly lifted his head while closing his eyes to focus better on a scent that was just noticed by his nose. Following it, he quickly arrived at one of several restaurants scattered throughout the giant ship. It was decorated with sculpted columns, both the walls and the floor were red with gold markings. The tables were made from sturdy, polished wood as were the chairs which additionally had a red, soft material for the seats and backs, which Red could attest to after trying one of them. He was holding onto the chair with both hands while testing how hard would it be to tip it over with him on it, at least until another person arrived from the kitchen.

"Hey, you!"

The voice was so startling, that Red almost actually fell off his chair, but he somehow managed to grab onto the table and stop himself. After letting out a sigh of relief, he looked in the direction of the open doors, which were right next to the counter behind which was a window with a look into the kitchen. The person that called him was a tanned, young adult with a his hair in a ponytail, in a chef's uniform.

"Yes?" Red asked hesitantly.

"I don't care if you are some kind of prince, but if you break something, you will have to pay for it." he responded in a rather nonchalant manner.

"Prince?" the teenager was confused "Far from that. I'm just a normal guy. Well... The captain hired me and my friend to help with protecting the Crystal Eye."

"The Crystal Eye? Yeeeah... I have no idea what that is. Is that one the things that's gonna be sold at the auction?"

"Uhm." he said while nodding "You really don't know about it?"

"Well, I care about doing my job. It's not like I could afford anything they're gonna sell, so I'd rather focus on what I can do. But... a hired help? Interesting."

"Is it?"

"Maybe..." the main said very quietly while glancing towards the kitchen through the door which was kept open by his foot "In the last week, about 20 of the cooks either called in sick, retired or got into an accident. There's around 150 of us on this ship, but it's still a surprisingly high number. We had to quickly get replacements. 3 of those replacements are currently working under me and they seem almost like complete rookies so the only thing they are good for is washing the dishes."

"You sound like a person who takes a lot of pride in what they do." Red blurted out, before a thought came over him that it may have sounded rude.

The man laughed when he saw the boy cover his mouth "Don't worry. I sometimes get too full of myself, true, but you should judge whether I'm too prideful by trying some of my food. We have started preparing a soup and seafood but they're not gonna be ready until quite some time, but we were actually eating a lunch, since we're gonna be constantly busy after all the passengers get on the ship. You can try some of it if you like."

"That'd be great."

Soon after that, the chef and the trainer were both enjoying their own bowl of macaroni with cheese, scallops and a vegetable sauce, while telling various stories from their travels. It was when they were about to finish eating when Green arrived in the restaurant, frantically looking around. When his eyes fell on Red's face, he quickly walked over with quite an irritated expression on his face.

"Oh! Green! You should try some of this pasta!" Red shouted happily, but his expression quickly changed to a cautious one when he realized that for some reason the other boy was angry at him.

"I told you that it would only take me a couple minutes and that I wanted you to want and yet you went by your own and I had to search half the ship to find you!" Green burst out.

The chef, not happy that he was interrupted during his meal, looked like he was chewing on something sour, while covering his ears from the deafening yells.

"Sorry, sorry. I was just kinda bored. But you found me, so you should eat with us."

Still annoyed Green started to talk "I don't wanna eat any..."

"He can't." the captain interrupted him.

"I can't?!" Green jumped back in surprise.

Even though he just announced that he didn't want to, it came as a shock that he would have been refused either way when Red already ate a meal.

"We made enough for the people working in this restaurant and each of us gave a little of his portion so that Red could have a meal, so there's nothing left. Sorry. But if you want, you can come back here later. Since you're hired by the captain, I guess that to a rational point, you can get free meals."

"Oh. Okay. Then I'll be back!" Green shouted while triumphally pointing a finger at the chef.

"Why are you making such a big deal out of this?" Red wondered.

"Because I want some satisfaction! You got a delicious meal. And what did I get? Nothing."

Red looked at him for a while, unsure of how to cheer him up, until he arrived at a conclusion "But you got something. That new Pokemon of yours."

"Oh, yeah." Green seemed to have forgotten completely about the prize he got from the captain until that point "Here."

Red was completely dumbfounded by the fact that his rival put the ball with, what he assumed to be, his new Pokemon, in front of Red.

"Wait. What is going?!"

Green didn't look angry or sad anymore. He just looked devoid of any hope and dreams. The boy slowly started walking towards the exit while hunched over. Red got up as fast as he could and after bowing and thanking the chef, and picking up the pokeball, followed his friend outside of the restaurant.

"Green, wait up! Why did you leave your new Pokemon?"

"I..." Green hesitated "You can have it. If you don't want it, just release it. I'm just afraid that if the captain played a joke like that on me, the prize we'll be getting for this security job will be another scam."

"Is it a weak Pokemon?"

"See for yourself."

"Okay." he said as he lifted the hand with the ball, ready to throw it.

"Wait, wait! We need to get to a pool or something first!" Green quickly stopped him while frantically waving his hands.

"Uh? Okay?"

After a couple minutes of walking, they managed to reach the pool that Red saw before.

"Is here good?" Red asked while squatting to test the temperature of the water with his hand.

"Yeah. I don't think passengers would be happy if you let a Pokemon swim in the pool so it's good that you see it before they start getting on."

"Alright." Red stood up and reached for the pokeball again "Go, whatever you are!"

From the red beam of light appeared a Pokemon that was mostly of that same color. A fish that looked disoriented by where it was. After seeing Green, it started swimming around in circles as a show of happiness.

"It looks happy to see you. Why don't you like it?"

"Don't you know what that is? It's a Magikarp. Although it has the possibility of evolving into a really strong Pokemon, training it takes a lot of time and work. In nature, it can learn only weak or downright useless moves."

Red looked a little taken aback by these words but tried to stay positive "He can't be that bad."

"If you don't believe me, check your Pokedex."

"Well... Alright." Red responded before reaching into his pocket for the device "Hmm. Magikarp. Fish Pokemon. Water type. Moves that it can learn are Splash, Tackle and Flail. Oh. Here's a description..."

"Well? What does it say?" Green asked him with a rather smug look on his face.

"It says that it's horribly weak, very unreliable, pathetic and virtually worthless in terms of speed and power..."

"See?"

"No. There must be something good here! Wait! Here!"

"What is it?"

"It says that it can survive in any body of water, no matter how polluted it is. It also says that a Magikarp living for many years can leap a mountain using Splash! How about that?"

Green was astounded by how Red would try to find the best even in the worst "That first thing doesn't seem like it would be actually useful. And the second one just sounds like a made up story."

"Watch!"

"Watch what?"

"I'll prove you wrong. I'm gonna take this Magikarp and make him strong. The strongest of any water Pokemon."

Green stood there for a second, thinking about something before he spoke up again "How about we make a deal? If we fight against each other in the Pokemon League, we'll both use our water Pokemon as the first ones. I don't have one but I'm sure I'll catch something stronger than this one before then. How about it?"

Green reached out with his right hand, and Red responded by shaking it with his own.

"Deal!" they both shouted so loud that the Magikarp who was enjoying himself in the water, jumped a little in surprise.

"Magikarp, from now on, Red will be your trainer." Green said while using a thumb to point to his friend.

The fish Pokemon turned its gaze towards its new partner, unsure of what was happening but after seeing the boy's smile, it immediately felt some kind of attachment to him, to the point that it jumped out of the water and started to happily splash around at its new trainer's feet. The boys panicked for a while before they both arrived at a surprising conclusion.

"It doesn't need water to survive?" Green's face was a mix of fear and astonishment.

"It seems so." said Red before reaching down to gently pet his new friend.

The boys were staring at it with spaced out expressions until they were taken out of their trance by a female voice "Uuuh... Like, what are you guys doing?"

They decided to look up and saw a girl who seemed to be a little older than them. She wore denim shorts, a white tank top with a bikini top visible underneath, elevated sandals and a designer bag. She had her blonde hair tied up in a bun and had gold-rimmed sunglasses on her forehead. Both of them considered her to be fairly attractive but were too busy, with thinking about how they would explain themselves, to focus on her good looks.

"Uh... So it seems the other passengers started getting on." Red stated the obvious.

Green decided to take control of situation by asking her "Are you here for the auction?"

"Like, why should I tell you that?"

Having his strategy completely annihilated, Green stood there with an open mouth, frantically trying to come up with something to say to that.

"No, I'm not." the girl also seemed to feel awkward so she decided to speed up their conversation "My father wants to get that crystal something or other for his collection. He made me go with him, so to make him angry I've decided to spend the whole day by myself... Like, maybe I'll try hitting on hot guys?"

Red grabbed Green's shoulder, afraid that he didn't know what would happen if this kept progressing. He thought that his rival would be better at this kind of stuff, but they were both similarly helpless.

The girl smirked deviously before adding "Tell me if you see any."

By saying that, she wanted to imply that a bunch of weirdos playing around with a fish by the pool was not worthy of her attention. After stroking her own ego in such a way, she quickly left by passing them both on her way to another pool, since she felt disgusted by the thought of swimming somewhere where a Magikarp swam before.

"Magikarp, return for now." Red called back his Pokemon, before both he and Green, without needing to exchange words, decided to return to their room in an awkward silence.

. . .

"Will that be all, Madam?"

A middle aged waiter with a waxed moustache arrived at Blue's table when he saw that she finished her second serving of the most expensive dish they had at the restaurant. Blue was taken out of her zone where she tried to forever save that amazing taste in her memory, knowing that she probably won't get many chances to eat something like that again.

"Ah. Sorry. I mean... Yes. You can bring the check."

"Right away." he said, while taking a little bow, before leaving.

Blue, not completely aware of how high class restaurants worked, decided to stand up to stretch her legs a little after being in her chair for almost an hour. Although it was comfortable, for her it was too much. She felt like she would sink in the comfort. While walking around, she noticed a transparent door in the high windows which surrounded the room. She was so consumed by her meal that she didn't have a chance to get a good look at the outside. The view from the balcony surrounding the tall round building was breathtaking. The people on the streets below looked almost like insects, but what got her attention the most was the sea. Thinking about how big it was, she started remembering her home which was on the other side of that body of water. When she felt a tear run down her cheek, she decided to turn her attention to something else.

She noticed a commotion at the port but couldn't quite tell what was going on. Thankfully, there were free tower viewers to both sides of her. She used one of them to look at the situation in the port. The commotion was around a giant ship, the biggest one she ever saw. There were plenty limousines and other expensive cars arriving there. She tried to zoom in as much as she could, and although she could tell there were many people there who were dressed in fancy clothes, she couldn't really tell their faces, so she wouldn't know if there were some celebrities there that she liked. She looked up a little to view how the deck looked. She blinked quickly and jumped backwards a little.

"No. That couldn't be him. But it seemed like that person had..."

"Madam?" she heard behind her.

"Ah! Yes?" she answered while turning around.

"I brought your check." the waiter said while handing her a booklet with a piece of paper inside.

"Right away. I..."

"Does something seem to be the problem?"

"Is this price right?"

"It should be. Well... I never saw anyone asking for two servings of the most expensive dish we have but if you can't pay there will be..."

"Of course I can pay it!" she got offended yet again "...It's just that I will use up everything besides what I got from Green..." she added quietly.

. . .

Red and Green were walking through the corridors of the ship. After spending some time in their room, they agreed on finding another pool and relaxing there for an hour or two.

"Shut up."

"I'm just trying..."

"I said shut up, Red." Green was quickly growing impatient.

"I'm just trying to say that I thought you would be better with girls."

"You weren't doing so hot out there either. You spent like the last hour crying into that pillow."

"I wasn't crying!" Red stuck out his chest, feeling that it would make him seem more respectable "And besides... You look like the kind of guy who could sweet talk girls and they would fall for it."

Green stopped and looked at Red, not sure if he should be proud or offended "What does that even mean?"

"I... With those purple pants, the collared shirt, the necklace and the wristbands... You look kinda like a douche."

"What?!"

"I said "look like". I didn't say that you are one."

Green threw his hands up in the air "Unbelievable."

For the rest of the way, Red tried to apologize by praising Green's battling skills and personality but his rival wasn't so easy to convince. He finally cheered up a little when they arrived at their destination.

"I haven't been on a holiday in a long time." he stated.

"Why would you need a holiday? You're young. Holidays are for old people who need a break from work."

"I don't know what you've been doing with your life before becoming a trainer but I spent all my time helping my grandpa or studying Pokemon."

"Oh. I was a fisherman."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me. You know..."

"Yes?"

"...This is the longest amount of time we spent together and I'm actually beginning to think I hate you."

"What?!" Red jumped back in surprise, causing him to bump into a person who was walking by and making them fall on the floor.

"Oh. Sorry. Let me help you." he said while bending down and reaching out with his hand which was promptly slapped away.

"I don't need your help, you pleb!"

The person got up. It was a fairly handsome man, with small, wide, green eyes and blonde, wavy hair combed to one side, who looked around 20 years old. He was wearing red pants and a red vest with a white, long-sleeved shirt underneath and a crimson tie around his neck. His black shoes were polished to the point where one could almost see their reflection in them. It was surprising that he wasn't bothered by the hot weather in that get-up.

"You will pay for your insolence! 20,000 to be exact." he said with a voice full of hostility.

"Whaaa-?" Red was visibly confused, while Green was standing back to see how the situation would play out.

"Didn't you hear me? I demand recompensation for hurting me and for getting my clothes dirty."

"But you don't look hurt and the floor is clean." Red stated the truth.

"That doesn't matter now, does it?"

Red turned around to his friend "Is this guy some kind of idiot?"

Green just lifted his hands, showing that he was just as clueless as to what was taking place.

"Wait." the man grabbed his panicked face with one of his hands as if he was trying to calm down his breath "You don't know who I am?"

Red just shook his head to the sides while Green lifted his hands yet again.

"Oh, the tragedy! I'm the one and only son of the king of the flower kingdom, Fleurland. I'm prince Jon Quille Laiteron! Not recognizing me doesn't excuse your insolence!"

"Okay." Red answered, before starting to walk away seeing as he was getting bored by the whole situation.

"Hold up! How dare you ignore me! I demand satisfaction!"

Green also started walking away, hoping to find a good place by the pool but before leaving he said "It's not like he has such amount of money, idiot. If you want to be satisfied you should beat him a Pokemon battle or something.."

"That's it!" the prince shouted while hitting the open palm of one of his hands with a closed fist formed by the other.

He took a few quick steps to get in front of Red and pointed a finger at him in a rather exaggerated manner "I challenge you to a duel! We'll both use one Pokemon each. If I win, after this cruise is over, you will work in the flower kingdom, taking care of the stables, until you are able to pay what you owe me!"

"And if I win?"

"Well, that won't happen, but you can ask for anything you wa..."

"You'll change your name to Idiot Prince."

"Wait-What?"

"So? Can we start?"

"Of course. As I said, there are no chances of you winning so I don't care about your demands."

The prince walked away so that they both next to the pool but at the opposite ends of it. Realizing what was happening, most people decided to move away to the other sides of the pool. Many of them became interested in the conflict and were watching with anticipation.

"The pride of the kingdom! The steed of kings! Go, Gallop!"

The Pokemon commanded by the prince was a Rapidash, but what Green immediately noticed was that its flames weren't their natural color, instead being dark gray. Red also realized that there was something wrong with how the Pokemon looked after he checked its data in his Pokedex.

"Why is it different?"

"It's one of the extremely rare, shiny Pokemon. The color of his flames doesn't influence his abilities in any way, but he's still the fastest Rapidash in the whole kingdom. Now, enough of talking. Call out your Pokemon so that we can get this over with."

"Okay."

"Charmander and Oddish would be bad match ups. Unless he has a fifth Pokemon his only choice is to go with Eevee. This way it'll become a battle of speed." Green was analyzing his rival's options under his breath.

"I choose Magikarp!" announced Red.

The fish Pokemon appeared out of its pokeball and started happily jumping around on the deck. Some people started laughing at Red's choice. Jon Quille wanted to join them but managed to stop himself because he didn't want to humiliate his opponent more than it was needed.

"Red, what are you doing? Just because he's a water Pokemon doesn't mean that he has any advantage! This isn't the time to try to prove something!" Green was getting annoyed by Red's nonchalant behavior.

"Don't worry. I never go into a battle without a plan."

Unbeknownst to either Red or Green, one of the people who were watching the whole situation was the girl they met earlier that day. At first she didn't care since she was on the opposite side of the pool, sunbathing in her bikini and with her hair down, but since people started gathering near where she was, there was too much shadow for her to get a tan and the noise of cheering and laughing also didn't help. That's why she decided to stand up and see what the whole commotion was about.

"It's those fish people. Hmm... That other guy... He looks like someone I should like try to talk to. After he beats that other guy."

"Will you be our judge, Green?" Red asked his friend.

"I... Alright. But you better win this." he answered while reluctantly standing next to a rail and rising his hand into the air "Fight!" he yelled while swinging that hand down.

"Flame Charge!" the prince didn't want to give his foe any time to react.

Rapidash's flames began to envelop all of his body besides the hoofs as he ran towards the fish Pokemon. Green moved as far back as he could to avoid getting burned. Meanwhile, Red waited patiently for an opportunity.

"Splash!"

After receiving his command, Magikarp quickly jumped a little, only to hit the floor with his tail and use it like a springboard to launch himself high into the air. Rapidash was moving too fast so when his opponent flew through the air and over him, the fire Pokemon couldn't stop itself before hitting the stairs leading to a higher deck. The only thing he could think of doing was to turn off its fire to avoid doing damage to the ship.

As he was about to crush into the stairs, the prince yelled out "Just slide!"

Listening to his trainer, the horse Pokemon turned sideways and while scratching the wooden floor with his hoofs, managed to completely turn himself around and use his hind legs to kick itself off the stairs and begin running in the opposite direction, towards the Magikarp who was still hanging mid-air after his jump. At that speed, Jon was sure that Rapidash would hit its target, but it was too late to activate Flame Charge a second time so he went with a different option.

"Megahorn!"

The horn on Rapidash's head began to glow with a dazzling light. It looked like he was about to impale the fish Pokemon.

"Splash!"

The moment the attack reached him, Magikarp managed to wiggle his body in such a way that it barely scraped his skin. He was still hurt, but he managed to avoid the brunt of the attack and continue on his downward path towards the floor. During the time Rapidash had to run to towards his trainer and comfortably spin around, Magikarp managed to convince himself to get through the pain he felt and assumed what could be interpreted as a fighting stance.

Green was closely observing the fight, trying to think what he would do if he was in Red's position. Meanwhile, his rival seemed busy with something else. Instead of focusing on the Rapidash who was again charging at his buddy, he was looking towards the crowd on the other side of the pool, his face showing that he was in deep thought.

"Okay. This should work." he said to himself before thrusting forward his right hand "Magikarp, attack from the left!"

"Attack?!" Green blurted out in surprise "What is he expecting to happen?"

Magikarp listened to its trainer and attacked in the only way it knew to, by jumping towards the opponent, but in the way it was ordered to, from the side. Without needing any command from Jon, Rapidash knew to fend off the offensive by lowering his head and using his horn to scoop up the opponent. Neither the fire Pokemon nor its trainer could suspect that Red already predicted that response and, to at least some degree, calculated where it would send Magikarp.

"Let's see if this works out." Red whispered "Magikarp, bounce off the floor!"

When the crowd saw that the Pokemon was plummeting towards them, they quickly started running away. The girl the boys met earlier was the only one who didn't get a chance to get to safety because she was knocked over by somebody in the commotion. This caused her to get the first row seat in the spectacle that was about to begin. Right before Magikarp hit the floor in front of her, a weird blue substance, similar to hair gel, enveloped its body. As soon as the Pokemon's body hit the wood, it seemed to disappear. A silence fell over everybody as they were trying to decipher what exactly happened.

The girl was probably the most shocked out of everybody, since she was the closest to Magikarp and still couldn't tell where it disappeared to. She tried to get some clues by looking at Red. She felt her heart speed up and heard the audible sound of her own gulping when she saw that the smile and the eyes of the boy were showing his undeniable confidence. Meanwhile, almost everybody else, including Jon and his Rapidash, were looking around, as if Magikarp somehow hid somewhere and was about to pop up any moment. They weren't that far from the truth. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind hit everybody, making some of them close their eyes. When Jon turned his eyes towards his Pokemon, he saw that it was about to fall to the floor as if it was hit by something, although the Magikarp was still nowhere to be seen. At that point, Green was the first one to figure out what was happening.

"That son of a gun..." he said under his breath while looking at something in the sky.

The girl noticed that and, following his example, also gazed upwards. That didn't help a lot. Instead, she was even more confused when she saw a cloud that seemed to have been pierced by something two times.

"Gallop! Are you okay?!" Jon was so afraid after seeing that his Pokemon was hurt so much that he couldn't begin to stand up, that he ran to him and without caring about being hurt by the flames, began to hug him.

Red looked at that scene for about a second before looking up and muttering "I really hope he'll change his path."

Suddenly, the wind blew again, and almost at the same time, something caused the water in the pool to rise up high above it and to splash everybody around. Having only a fraction of a second to react, the prince somehow managed to place Gallop back in its pokeball. The water fell down, causing what seemed like a short rain. Although some people were yelling in confusion during it all, after the water calmed down, they fell silent again.

"The winner is Red!" announced Green.

After hearing those words, people began to realize, one by one, that what caused the water in the pool to rise was none other than Magikarp. The prince looked at his opponent's Pokemon with a shocked face before realizing that him recalling Gallop, even if it hasn't fainted, meant that lost. The crowd arrived at the same conclusion which was signaled by them starting to loudly cheer for Red and his Magikarp. The teenager kneeled down beside the pool. Seeing that, his partner happily swam towards him. When he was close enough, the boy lifted him up and hugged while praising him "You did a great job!"

Red stopped and put Magikarp on the floor when he realized that Jon came up to him.

"I know that I lost, but even worse than that is the fact that I have no idea how it happened. I... Could you explain?"

"I can do that." stated Green, who was also approaching them.

The prince gave a gesture that was meant to tell "Go ahead."

"Although most Magikarps learn only Tackle and Splash, when trained appropriately, some of them can learn the move bounce. I didn't think about it earlier, but it seems that after getting the Magikarp from the captain, Red studied it and arrived at the conclusion that since the captain deemed it to be a rare Pokemon and it wasn't a rare species, there must have been some other thing about it that was unusual. And the move Bounce was the only logical conclusion. I wonder if it was owned by someone or whether it learned the move in the wild... But that's beside the point. Red predicted where Rapidash would send Magikarp if he attacked it from the side and by saying "bounce of the floor", he hoped that Magikarp would know to use that move. And it did. It flew so high that it parted the clouds." at that point of his explanation, he pointed towards the sky.

The prince just then saw the cloud riddled with holes, although it was beginning to disappear.

"The first time, it hit your Rapidash. After that, you hugged your Pokemon so Magikarp decided to avoid hitting you by landing in the pool. Even with Bounce, it couldn't stop itself after hitting the water. And that's the story."

"I feel so stupid that I didn't realize your plan... It seems like the name "Idiot Prince" will fit me well." Jon lamented over his fate while lowering his head.

"You know I only joked?"

"What?" the prince looked up towards Red from whom came the words.

"There's nothing legal that would mean you would have to change your name after losing to me."

The prince looked offended "It's not about legality! It's about honor! You can't stop me! I will change my name to Idiot Prince the moment we reach land!"

"I... I didn't actually beat you. Your Rapidash was still able to fight. Let's just say that I get to call you "Idiot Prince" and we'll be square. From the beginning, it wasn't about changing your name but about seeing you being humble."

"No!" the prince yelled "I won't change my mind!"

"Gah! I won't change my mind either!" Red was beginning to get worked up.

"Yeah?!"

"Yeah!"

"Then maybe we should settle this in a Pokemon fight!"

"That would be my pleasure!"

Suddenly, both of them stopped and after a few moments of silence, they began laughing aloud. Green smiled at that scene, seeing how similar those two actually were, if one looked past who they were on the outside.

"All this made me hungry again." stated Red.

"Then we should get something to eat together." decided Jon.

"Oh yeah. There's this amazing restaurant here. Hey, Green. You coming with us?"

"Sure. After that whole thing, they'll probably have to clean up this place." responded his rival.

Red sent Magikarp back to his pokeball after praising it once again. As they were getting ready to depart, the three of them felt obliged to wave towards the crowd who were once again cheering them on. After walking into the corridor, all the voices went quiet, so it was all the more surprising when they heard someone shout "Wait!"

All of them turned around and saw the girl from before. She must have ran after them, judging by her unregular breathing. Her face was completely red but it also looked as if she was dead set on something she decided.

"Yes?" asked Red.

"Like, can I come with you?" she asked.

It took all of her power to get through the embarrassment she felt after her harsh judgement of the boys and her newfound admiration for Red. She was averting her gaze, afraid that their eyes would meet.

"Sure." he responded without hesitation.

She looked up, full of joy and ready to say something, but then she noticed that the trainer was pointing towards her body.

"But you should put something on." Red added.

After realizing that she was still wearing only her bikini, she became shy once again, and quickly went into one of the side corridors with only her head sticking out from behind the wall.

"Wait a bit. I'll go get my bag." she said, before disappearing completely.

"Weird girl." commented Jon.

. . .

Sometime later, on the same sea, the mysterious man travelling on his own, was beginning to get ready for the evening. He started by putting on a dark purple suit with a top hat in the same color, and gloves and boots in a slightly lighter shade. He also had a cape which was tucked through his belt in such away that it could sway in the wind but wouldn't obstruct what he was about to do next. He lightly patted himself on the back, causing a pair of two blue wings to emerge from under the cape. After checking the pokeballs and a small bag, both attached to his belt, he was ready to take off his sunglasses and replace them with a domino mask in the color of his suit, but with white lenses that hid the color of his eyes.

After looking at some screen inside his boat, he went outside and stretched his arms a little "The wind is good. Now the only thing left is to wait a little bit."

Soon after that, just as he expected, a flock of Farfetch'ds were flying over the area where he stopped his boat. It was the end of summer so the flying type Pokemon living around the coast of Kanto could be expected to begin their flight towards warmer regions. Those that lived more inland wouldn't usually bother with that and would just try to bear the upcoming cold in the next half of the year. Knowing that this would happen, the man analyzed wind patterns since the flying Pokemon could also sense them and use wind currents to speed up their flight. This assured him that some would fly right over him.

"Okay. Let's go." he said and the wings extending from his back immediately began to move up and down, lifting him into the air.

After a short while, he was flying right behind the flock of birds, although making sure that he didn't get in the way of their formation.

At the same time, in the radar room of St. Anne, a group of sailors was keenly observing the various screens, making sure that they could alarm the captain if any abnormality appeared. The one they were on the lookout for was, of course, Phantom Venin.

"I've got something!" one of them announced.

Some of the other ones looked at his screen, while most stayed glued to their own, trying to see what he was talking about.

"It's just a flock of some of Pokemon." stated the highest ranked one "We can't get distracted by stuff like this."

"I'm sorry. This won't happen again." said the one who made the announcement.

If only his boss was careful enough to check up on that unsuspicious flock of birds, he would have seen that the one they were searching for was, in fact, among the said flock.

"We're almost over St. Anne." the thief said, seemingly to himself "It's time for my next trick."

After saying that, he took one of his pokeballs and making sure that it appeared in his hand, which would help hold it up, he called out an Abra. The psychic Pokemon knew the plan, since Phantom Venin went over it several times with each of his Pokemon, but it still turned his head to see his face and make sure that it was the right time. Another reason was to choose a specific location. Realizing what the Pokemon wanted, the man pointed towards a part of the roof that seemed to not have any people watching it and would be easy to get off.

Following his owner's finger, the psychic Pokemon zeroed in the right place and focused his mind. Before the Phantom could tell, he was already standing on the roof, thanks to Abra's Teleportation. It was important to use the bird Pokemon to get closer to the ship since Abra's powers had a limited range, but the psychic Pokemon still executed his role masterfully.

"Great job. Remember that you still have a job to do." the thief said before calling the Pokemon back into its ball.

In a couple quick movements, the criminal took off his mask and folded his top hat before putting them both in his bag. By tapping on his back, he caused the wings to retract under the cape. He took out a couple vials with colorful substances. Just a drop of each of them changed his suit to black, his cape and gloves to white, and his hair to dirty blonde. He took out a small comb and used it to make his hair more slick. He also prepared an artificial petit goatee and a fake mole which he put under his left eye. By doing those things, he made himself look like a famous collector from a faraway land whom he had kidnapped and left under the care of his associates as soon as that person landed in Kanto. Since he was busy with another heist at the same time, he couldn't get his hands at the ticket and had to do the whole thing the hard way.

After checking how he looked in a small mirror in comparison to a photo of the person he was masquerading as, he jumped off the roof. Although he was careful not to be seen by anybody, just as he landed a door opened behind him. From inside came no one other than Red and his companions who were done with their meal, after having to wait for it a long time, and were trying to find something fun to do till the beginning of the auction. Seeing the man in suit kneeling and blocking his way, Red looked rather confused. At the same time, the impostor was getting anxious, thinking that his cover might have just been blown if they saw him jump from the roof.

"Uhh... Could you move?" asked the boy from Viridian City.

"What?" the thief was surprised.

"You're blocking our way." Green spoke up.

"Oh, of course. I was just looking for something I dropped but I already got it." he responded, trying to hide his nervousness, while standing up.

"Oh. Okay then." Red said before passing the man by "Anyway, what do you think we should do now?"

. . .

"I want to check on Gallop." answered the prince, who left his Pokemon, at a Pokemon Center located on the ship, before going to the restaurant with others.

"Oh. Then maybe you could like show me your other Pokemon once we're there? I overheard some kid talking about a playground area for Pokemon." said the girl.

"Good idea, Fille." Red responded, having learned her name during their conversation at the restaurant.

After the group left, Phantom Venin stood there for a short while, astonished that he wasn't found out, before he decided to find a place to lay low till the auction.

"Your Pokemon is completely healed."

"Thank you."

Jon took a small bow as he took the pokeball from the nurse. After that, he took a few steps back before throwing it into the air to see his Pokemon. After being released, the Rapidash stood in front of its trainer, with its eyes closed for a short while, before opening them and letting out neigh. The prince stepped forward and started caressing its head without speaking a word. After he was done, he, in the same silent manner, put it back in its pokeball.

"Everything's fine. We can go to that playground area." he said to the rest of the group after turning around.

"Like, how is it that Rapidash's mane didn't burn your hand?" Fille asked, rather curious.

"If it's not in the middle of a battle, Gallop can make it so his flames don't burn anything. Otherwise it would be pretty hard to take care of him. His fire is essentially like normal hair. I groom it every day and trim its mane and tail when they get too big." the prince explained.

After stepping into a room adjacent to the one where the healing machine was placed, they saw that it was a spacious place with fake grass, an area filled with sand, a couple ponds, small fruit trees, pillows, chew toys and various posts and obstacles for flying Pokemon. Here and there were some kids and occasional adults playing with their Pokemon, but the space was mostly empty.

"I guess that most rich people don't bother to own Pokemon." Green commented.

"Well..." Jon wanted to find a good excuse but came up empty-handed "...Yeah. Even in my family, my mother is the only one besides me who has a personal Pokemon. We have mail birds, various Pokemon at the stables, grass Pokemon for preparing herbs and the guards have their own ones but besides that... Everybody in my family has to learn how to ride a Ponyta or a Rapidash. During my training I got so close to Gallop that my father allowed me to keep it as my personal steed. But enough about me. Fille wanted to see your Pokemon."

"Oh, yes. Please do." the girl said while bowing.

She was a little embarrassed by the fact that she was the only one among them that didn't have even one Pokemon.

"Her change in attitude still seems suspicious to me." Green whispered so that only Red could hear him.

"But you have no problem with trusting me."

"Well, yeah. You seem kinda less..."

"Uhh? "Less" what?"

"I don't know. Just "less"."

"Oi." Red said in a louder voice while giving Green a light chop to his chest.

"Like, what are you doing?" Fille asked, and the boys immediately realized that the other two have been staring at them with confused faces.

"Riiight. So... Pokemon. Do you want to see them one by one or..." Red tried to play off the whole thing that just happened.

"If you can, show them all at once." the girl answered.

"Alright." Red replied before he began to detach the pokeballs one by one till he had them all in his hands and could throw them up, releasing all of his Pokemon "Come out, my buddies!"

In one moment, the area around Red was filled by his companions. Fille was quickly looking at them one by one, not having time to focus on any for longer than a short while, since she was interested in all of them. The first thing Eevee did was, of course, he ran to his trainer's leg and started cuddling against it. Oddish was asleep. Pikachu was eyeing up the humans it didn't recognize, with a suspicious expression on his face. Magikarp was jumping around happily while Charmander tried to slowly approach it, curious about who this new arrival was.

"Calm down, everybody." Red ordered them in a nice tone.

After hearing that, all of them besides the sleeping Oddish and the Magikarp, got into a line in front of their trainer.

"This here is a new addition to our group. It's a Magikarp. Make sure to be nice to him."

While Charmander and Pikachu had shown their obedience by lightly nodding, Eevee decided to immediately get acquainted with Magikarp by trying to high five it, but because of the fish's slipperiness, he fell. All of them, including Eevee, found that funny and started laughing.

"Besides wanting you to meet Magikarp, I wanted to show you to our new... friends." Red said while gesturing towards Jon and Fille.

Eevee immediately got up and ran towards the girl who couldn't stop herself from petting it after seeing how cute it was.

When those introductions were done, Green stepped forward while holding all the pokeballs containing his team "Guess it's my turn."

"Go ahead." said Jon, seeing as Fille was still busy with the dog Pokemon.

"Everybody, it's time to take the stage!" Green shouted before releasing his team in the same way as Red did before with his.

The one that stood out the most was Hitmonlee, who did a few spins and kicks in mid-air before landing next to other ones who were calmly waiting on the floor for any potential orders. Ivysaur was quick to realize what was happening. As a sign of that, he gave his trainer a look to make sure. Green nodded, after which Ivysaur slowly let out two vines which travelled to Jon's and Fille's hands to give them his equivalent of a handshake.

"Such good manners." the prince commented during the greeting.

"Y-Yeah." Fille tried to hide that she was a little creeped out by the texture of the vine.

After that, Jigglypuff tried to impress everybody by rolling around but it was not careful enough and didn't notice the sleeping Oddish till it was too late. Not only did it wake him up, but caused it to go flying. Fortunately, Ivysaur was fast enough and caught it with its vines before it hit the floor. Oddish opened its eyes for a couple seconds and looked around before deciding on going back to sleep. Out of the whole group, Nidorina seemed the shyest as she didn't do anything to accommodate the curiosity of Jon and Fille. While the girl tried to convince it to play with her, the prince observed as Charmander approached Ivysaur. They both had something like an air of mutual respect about them.

"What's the meaning behind that?" he asked.

"Both of these Pokemon belonged to my grandpa before we got them so they know each other fairly well. They still haven't fought against one another so I imagine there's a lot of curiosity about who would win. I can't lie. I would also like to learn that." during the last words, Green gave Red a confident smile.

"Do you wanna go?"

"Not today." Green stopped him "Okay, everyone. It's time to go back to your pokeballs."

One by one, Pokemon started disappearing into the spheres. Red started doing the same with his.

"Whaaat?" Fille said in a disappointed voice while holding the sleeping Oddish in her arms.

"We agreed to show you our Pokemon but we can't spend too much time playing around and risk getting them injured." Green explained in a monotone voice as the last of his Pokemon went into its ball.

"Why is that?" Jon was a little confused by that statement.

"I..." Red stopped himself "Wait. Can we talk about this?'"

Green shrugged. Taking that as a "yes", Red gestured for Jon and Fille to get closer, so he could whisper to them.

"The thing is, we were hired as additional security to protect the Crystal Eye from a thief called Phantom Venin."

"Phantom Ven...!" Fille stated, before Red could cover her mouth with his hand.

"I think we are supposed to keep this a secret. I'm not entirely sure. But that's why we have to preserve the strength of our Pokemon. That Phantom guy is supposed to steal the gem at 9 p.m. but we have to constantly be on the lookout for him since he may very well already be aboard. Wait... What's thaaaa... Ewww!"

Red jerked his hand away when he realized that Fille was licking his palm.

"Why did you do that?"

"Like, I wanted you to get it off and my own hands were busy with holding Oddish." she explained, a little annoyed at his disgusted reaction.

"Oh, right. Oddish still wasn't in his ball." Red realized as he was wiping Fille's saliva on his pants, much to Jon's distaste.

"Waaaaait." Fille tried to be as loud as she could be without screaming.

"What is it this time?" Red stopped with a pokeball in his hand.

"Like, can I keep him?" she said while bringing Oddish closer to her face.

"Can you... What? No, you can't keep him!"

"I don't mean for like forever. Just till this cruise is over."

"I..." after looking into her eyes full of hope, Red couldn't bring himself to refuse "I'm probably going to regret this but okay. Just one thing."

The boy walked up to her and tugged on one of Oddish's leaves to wake him up. The Pokemon yawned before looking at its trainer to see what he wanted.

"I want you stay with Fille for now." Red explained while pointing to the girl "If she gets in trouble, you will have to protect her."

Oddish smiled and went to sleep. Fille seemed happy, but the boy wasn't sure if the Pokemon understood what he told him to do.

"We still have a couple hours. Do you have anything else in mind?" Green asked.

"We could go to the restaurant again..." Red pondered with a focused expression.

"How much do you eat anyway?" the prince looked a little afraid.

"What about y..." Green wanted to ask Fille but she was too busy with poking Oddish's face "Okay. I guess I'll decide. I heard that they have bars with pool tables and darts. We can search for one and once we are there, we'll see how it goes from there."

. . .

Since the time of the auction was nearing, Red and Green split up from the other two and all of them went to their rooms to get dressed in clothes more suited for the evening party, although Red wasn't sure what that meant in Jon's case. When the boys arrived in their accommodation, they noticed packages on both of their beds. After looking inside, they realized that they contained the suits which captain sent someone to rent earlier in the day. Red immediately started taking off his clothes, beginning with his hat and followed by the jacket.

"Wait up!" Green stopped him.

"Why? What's going on?"

"Have some decency. We may both be males but I don't want to see you in your underwear."

"Wait, what?"

"Go to the bathroom." Green demanded while pointing to the door.

"Okay. Geez."

After a couple minutes, Green was done with getting into his suit. It was a fairly plain, black one but it still made him look good and more fit for the occasion. When Red didn't return for some time, he started worrying about him and decided to knock on the door.

"Are you doing okay?"

"I'm just having problems with my tie. I never wore one."

"Alright. Let me help you." Green said before going inside.

He looked at his friend from feet up to his head, and had to take a step back and grab onto something. Although he wouldn't have ever said it, he was astonished by how natural Red looked in a suit. Added was the fact that Red wasn't wearing his hat and had combed hair.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Green gathered himself, before going over to Red and helping him with the tie "Not too tight?"

"No. I think it's fine." he answered after checking himself in the window "But this still doesn't feel right."

"What do you..."

Before Green could finish, Red put both hands into his hair and messed it up, before reaching for his hat, which was placed on the sink, and putting it on.

"It wouldn't feel right without this."

. . .

The boys arrived a little early, but Jon was already waiting for them in front of the auction room, checking his watch. This time, the colors of his clothes were kind of reversed, since he was wearing a white suit with a red shirt underneath. His shoes were also white.

"Did you wait for long?" asked Red.

"No. Don't worry. Besides, there already many people waiting for the doors to open." the prince answered while looking at the crowd gathered around them.

"Wow. That guy over there has like 20 women with him." Red commented.

"18 to be precise." stated Jon "He's Rajul Muhimiun, the king of Rimal Hara Kingdom. In that part of the world it's very common for people to have multiple wives. It's pretty much allowed everywhere but people rarely do it because the law states that each wife, or husband if it's a woman with multiple partners, has to be a citizen of a different region or kingdom. Which means that each of these women had to travel from far away, possibly leaving their families, so they could stay with the king."

"18 wives seems like a scary thought." stated Green.

"Yeah. Even 2 would be too much for me." added Red.

"You want to have a wife?" his rival wondered.

"I mean... I don't have any plans right now but if there's a right time and a right person then yeah."

"Hey guys." a familiar voice interrupted them.

When they looked in the direction from which it came from, they saw Fille, wearing a bright yellow dress, reaching the floor, but with a thigh high slit which left one of her legs completely revealed. The dress was strapless and adorned with a sewn flower. She wore fairly high heels and her hair was stylishly arranged, with a small, silver decoration placed in it. She was holding onto one of Oddish's leaves, carrying him with one hand, and the sleeping Pokemon didn't seem to mind it much.

"You look more beautiful than the fairest flower in Fleurland." Jon commented before placing his lips upon her hand.

"Oh. Thanks." the girl was a little surprised but not dissatisfied with such a gesture, although there was person about whose opinion she cared more "What do you think, Red?"

"It looks nice." he answered while giving her a slight smile.

. . .

In another part of the ship, the chef whose restaurant was visited by Red twice that day was getting done with enjoying his cigarette, while admiring the sun which would soon set. He made sure to extinguish it in a nearby ashtray instead of throwing it in the sea, like many of the rich types aboard the ship preferred to do. When he returned to his restaurant, the lights were on but the place was completely empty. That was to be expected since all the passengers went to the auction. He still couldn't just take a break, and had to be ready for anything. But nothing could prepare him for what came next. As he went back into the kitchen, he noticed that it seemed eerily quiet. When he went a little further in, he found most of the people working under him unconscious and tied up. Before he could react in any way, something hard hit him in the head and he collapsed onto the floor.

. . .

"Excuse me?"

Blue, who was absorbed in a book, while sitting in the Pokemon Center lobby, had to stop and put a paper bookmark inside before she could look up to see whom the voice belonged to. It turned out to be a young women with a friendly demeanor.

"Yes?"

"I was just wondering if you would like to join us for our weekly movie party."

Blue didn't completely understand that sentence "A what now?"

"It's a get-together organized by Lt. Surge. Each week, anywhere up to 200 people gather together to watch movies which he plays on the side of his Gym. We do a vote a week before and choose one of the movies, while the other one is chosen by Lt. Surge himself."

"I met him earlier today and fought to get the Thunder badge, but I don't really know him well enough... Did he invite me?"

"No. I mean... Not you specifically. But each weak he makes sure to send me to invite any people from out of town who are at the Pokemon Center."

"But..." Blue was still unsure how to feel about it, since she would be going there alone, and wanted to find some excuse not to do it because she didn't want to outright refuse "...Isn't there a curfew? If the movies go too lo..."

"Don't worry about that. The head nurse also will be attending this event, so if it goes too long, she will let you in even after curfew."

Blue was still going in her head over any options, but seeing the genuine hope on the woman's face, she finally broke under pressure and responded "Okay. I'll come."

"That's great. I still have to go around and ask a couple people so let's meet by the front door in about... 8 minutes?"

"Alright." while saying that, Blue tried to put on the best smile she could.

. . .

A little later, back on St. Anne, the crowd around the auction room was getting smaller as more and more people were going inside. The place was a lot bigger than one would suspect from the outside. It was arranged in a weird way where it seemed like the only people who got tables to themselves were the richest ones, although they were placed far from the stage where the items for sale were to be presented. Closer to the stage, there was an area with long tables full of food up against the walls, and a big space for people to stand. Multiple waiters were, at any given moment, travelling through that area and offering various drinks to the guests. The place closest to the stage was a couple steps down and had around 10 rows of chairs.

Red and his friends were walking through the room and decided to, for at least some time, stop in the middle part. It made sense to them that if they were sitting somewhere in the front or with Fille's father or Jon's family in the back, they would be slower to react to whatever Phantom Venin had planned.

"Could I interest any of you sirs or madam in a drink?" one of the waiters asked while bowing appropriately in front of their group.

"A champagne, please." Jon was the first to respond.

"Do you have any juice?" Red was not used to those kinds of events, so he was a little afraid to make a fool of himself.

"We do. Apple, orange, grape, peach..."

"Orange is fine." Red stopped the waiter before he could list probably another 20 types of juices.

Fille felt a little doubtful if she should choose what she wanted, not wanting to look bad in Red's eyes. She didn't fully understand why his opinion would matter so much to her, but nevertheless, she let it influence her "For me, just a water."

"I'll take some medium sweet red wine." stated Green.

Everyone besides the waiter, looked at him with a little shock. Thankfully, the man had all the things they wanted on his tray so he handed them out and left, leaving the group in awe of what Green just did.

"Aren't you a little too young for that?" the prince asked.

"Yeah. That's what I've been wondering." added Red.

Green stirred the wine and sniffed it before taking a sip, after which he looked at the astonished faces of his companions "My grandpa wanted me to grow up to be... "a fine man" is what I guess you would say. He let me try various types of alcohol he had in his cellar to make sure that I wouldn't be a person who gets pressured by people to try like a beer or something. And I found out that from all types of alcohol I like wine the best. Now I'm at the point where I won't go to a party to get drunk, but have no problem with drinking some wine every now and then for my enjoyment. I don't think I would become an alcoholic without this type of preparation but I'm thankful to my grandpa anyway."

"Weird. I never tried any alcohol because they all smell weird." stated Red.

"And that's fine." interjected Jon "No one should feel bad about liking or disliking alcohol. I mean, alcoholism isn't a good thing but if people just go about things the right way, everything should be alright."

The whole conversation made Fille feel stupid about getting the water instead of the drink she wanted to order.

While all this was going, the disguised Phantom Venin was right outside of the room, observing the people walking inside, making sure that there was no passengers left wandering the corridors of the ship, who would be able to see what he was planning to do. Although a couple members of security were standing beside the doors of the auction room, the crowd was too big for them to notice him slipping away. The last couple hours weren't wasted. Using a couple tricks connected to his Pokemon's abilities, he managed to gain knowledge needed to execute his plan. After finding a good spot, he squatted down and took out two of his pokeballs. The Pokemon called out by him were a Gastly and a Porygon.

"You know what your roles are?" he asked them.

Porygon gave out a couple short, screeching noises while Gastly nodded.

"Alright. Remember, by my calculations the Crystal Eye will go up for auction at around 9 o'clock. I know that since he received my message, the captain will try to keep things quick and make sure that it's there, since his type of people think that somehow an item at display is harder to steal than one in storage. But, no matter what happens, there is no way for me contact you so just do your part. If the gem is sold too fast, the rest of us will deal with it and what you'll be doing could still help us. That's all. Go."

After hearing him out, Gastly turned invisible and probably flew off while Porygon walked over to an electrical outlet and let itself be sucked into it.

"Now that this is done, I can go to the auction and wait for the right time."

While walking there, the thief was thinking about how lucky he was that the captain decided not to an additional ticket check at the auction room doors, probably because he was afraid of offending any guests.

. . .

The auction was going for almost two hours and it was almost time for the Crystal Eye to be brought onto the stage. Although the group took a couple breaks to sit down and have a chat, Red and Green decided that from that point on they should make sure to be on full alert. Just as they were returning to the middle area, leaving Fille and Jon alone at a table, since their parents fathers seemed to take a liking to each other and sat together, they ran into a familiar face.

"Hey, Michael. How's it going?' Red asked the sailor after seeing him smuggling appetizers into his pockets.

"Oh. It's you, guys." it was slightly hard to decipher what he was saying since his mouth was full of various cheeses and meats.

After noticing that he had trouble swallowing it, Green handed him his third, half-full, wine glass. After emptying it completely, the man let out a sigh of relief.

"Thanks a lot." he said while handing the glass back to the teenager.

Surprised by that, Green was unsure about what to do with it, for a short while, until he saw a passing waiter and agilely placed it on the plate that person was carrying, without them noticing.

"So, did you spot anyone suspicious yet?" the sailor asked them.

"Wait. You know about this whole... Phantom thing?" Red was taken aback.

"I should. I'm part of the security detail. We must have missed each other at the entrance to this room since I was busy with some other stuff, but I stood by the doors for quite some time, eyeing up everybody. But I didn't find anyone suspicious."

"But what about now? You left your post?"

"Don't worry. I told one of the new guys to take my place since I was so busy that I didn't get to eat anything for a couple hours. All the restaurants are most likely closed so I decided to go in here. But I'm not allowed to actually eat any of this food so keep this from the captain."

Something that he said sparked Red's interest "What do you mean by "one of the new guys"?"

"A lot of the security guys got a flu or something so we had to hire new guys like a week ago."

"That seems suspicious. What if one of them is Phantom Venin in disguise?" Green spoke up.

"I thought about that. I checked each of them personally. The Phantom is supposed to be a slim guy and those are mostly muscular types, some overweight ones, and one woman. I made sure anyway by trying to pinch their cheeks but none of them was wearing a mask." Michael explained.

Red was in deep thought, which slightly worried the other two.

"Does the Phantom usually work alone?" he asked finally.

"If our information is right, he sometimes has one or two people helping him, but most of the heists he does are solo. Why? Did you come up with something?"

"No... I... I'm probably wrong..." Red didn't want to jump to conclusions based only on his assumptions.

"You never know. If what you are thinking about turned out to be helpf..." Michael stopped himself as both he and the teenagers noticed that most of the light in the room went dark.

The three of them turned their attention to the stage where the auctioneer was getting ready to make an announcement. He was not the only person there since he was accompanied by two members of the security. Red looked around after noticing that more and more people were moving towards the stage. He thought he caught a glimpse of Fille's father.

"We should also move up." decided Green.

Not realizing that Michael stayed behind, the boys moved through the crowd so that they were standing next to the fifth row from the stage.

"Ladies and Gentlemen!" the auctioneer shouted into his mic which surely must have had its volume turned up for the auction of this specific object "This is what most of you probably came here for! One of the most sought after gems in the entire world! Although the previous owner refused to sell it to anyone during his lifetime, his will stated that he wanted it to be auctioned off after his passing, with all the profits going to charity! Some tales say that it's a clue to the existence of an ancient underwater civilization! Other say that it's an object left on earth by extraterrestrial beings! The most popular rumor is that it lets its owner see the future! If you want to learn its secrets, you will have to put a price on this previously priceless object! Here! It! Is! Crystaaaaal... Eyeeeee!"

As the man finished his speech, all the lights turned towards a spot on the middle of the stage. The floor opened, revealing a rising pedestal with a glass cover, with the Crystal Eye, a most beautiful, blue gem laying on a small red pillow. Green assumed in his mind that the glass was reinforced so that someone wouldn't be able to smash it, which meant that there probably was some kind of precaution that would prevent someone from even touching the cover unless they inputted the right code in the electronic pad attached o the pedestal. Green was thinking of ways that one could avoid touching the glass. There was probably a gap between the glass and the stone of which the pedestal was made but only something the size of a string could fit inside.

"Maybe the captain was worrying about no..." Green started talking to Red, but stopped as the room suddenly went completely dark.

Somewhere in the room, Phantom Venin, having rehearsed what he was going to do, managed to put on his mask and top hat, take off the fake facial features, and change back to his signature colors and natural hair, all in a matter of seconds, before he said to himself "It's showtime."

"What's going on?!" yelled out the auctioneer.

As if in response to him, the spotlights started moving around and flickering while the speakers started playing some kind of quick yet oddly menacing jazz music. The whole thing lasted for around 20 seconds, and most of the people took it as just some sort of spectacle. By catching quick glimpses of sailors who were the security detail, Green judged that this was definitely not a planned thing. Before he could come up with any idea on what to do, the music stopped as suddenly as it began. At the same time, all the lights turned back on, blinding the people for a short while. When they opened their eyes, everybody turned their attention towards the pedestal only to realize that Phantom Venin was standing right next to it, holding the Crystal Eye in his hand while smiling triumphally.

"Well? How was it? Did you like my little magic show?"

All of the people in the room were too shocked to answer or to even move. The auctioneer was staring at the thief for a second before he came back to his senses "Security, what are you doing?! Catch him!"

The two other men on stage ran towards the criminal, but as they got close, his wings emerged from under the cape and by doing a full spin with his body, he caused a wind which carried both of them off the stage and onto the hard floor beneath.

"That's not nice." he said in a sarcastic voice "You should wait until I receive my applause."

As if influenced by his words, somebody in the front row started clapping his hands. One by one, other people joined in, until a moment where almost everybody was doing it. When Green caught Red doing it, he became quite irritated.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't "sorry" me. We need to take back the Crystal Eye."

"Don't you find it weird?" Red asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Look around."

Green did just that, hoping to find whatever his friend was referring to. His face went white when he realized that the other security members placed in the room were just standing around and doing nothing. Some of them even looked weirdly happy with the situation.

"Something is wrong." the voice came from Michael who managed to catch up to them "I used my communicator to tell the other guys to do something but none of them answered. Not the ones here. Not the ones outside."

As if things weren't hectic enough, a loud noise came from behind them. As the trio turned around to see what was going on, they witnessed a group of people in what looked like gray, futuristic army uniforms, come inside the room. They weren't alone. They were surrounded by a group of various Pokemon; mostly Machokes and Machops but also a Venonat, an Exeggcute, and Exeggutor, a Slowpoke, a Chansey and a Beedrill. One of them, a beautiful woman with long, white hair, stepped out from the group and spoke through a megaphone "Ehm. We are the Darkness Gang. We come here to take all the precious items that are up for auction or have already been sold. First off, I urge you stay where you are and not make any suspicious movements unless you want to get hurt. We have our members everywhere in this room."

As she said that, all the sailors who were in the room as security, besides Michael, took off of their caps and threw them to the floor which seemed to signify their allegiance.

"Secondly, I would like to extend our thanks to Phantom Venin. Having learned that you planned to steal the Crystal Eye, we decided to use you, since we didn't know what measures were taken to protect the gem."

"My, my. You sure are greedy." the thief spoke through the microphone he took from the auctioneer "You had all these riches but you still waited for my arrival just so you could get the Crystal Eye."

"It is priceless after all." the woman responded.

"It is." the Phantom agreed "You know what else it is?"

"What?"

"Mine." right as he said those words, the thief swiftly threw a smoke pellet which he got from his bag, and used it to dive behind the curtains.

A couple of the fake sailors were ready to rush towards the stage but the moment they tried to move, all of them quickly fell down, which knocked them out. Green looked towards the one closest to him and realized that some white substance caused the shoes of those men to stick to the floor.

"Damn it!" the woman leading Darkness Gang yelled out "What are you waiting for?! Go after him!"

A couple members of her group and their Machops and Machokes started running towards the stage, knocking back anyone who stood in their way. Red and Green looked at each other to make sure that the other one was prepared to fight back, but the assault stopped suddenly when one of the gangsters was caused to trip by a familiar person. Fille stood up and looked at him with disgust "You won't get away with this."

"Oh yeah?! Machoke, teach her a lesson!"

The Pokemon prepared his punch and was already mid-swing when suddenly he stopped and started to wobble before falling down. His trainer realized that the girl was protected by the Oddish held in her arms, who released his Sleep Powder.

One of them came up with a solution to this newfound problem "It won't work if we attack in group!"

As an answer to that, three Machops jumped towards the girl. They did so from different angles although strictly speaking all of them were still in front of her. She closed her eyes in fear, suspecting that they were probably right in thinking that Oddish couldn't stop them, but it appeared that that he didn't need to.

The girl heard a loud crash and when she opened her eyes, all she could see was fire. As she took a step back, she realized that it was Jon's Rapidash who saved her by sending the group of fighting Pokemon flying into a wall. The young man was sitting on his steed's back and reached out his hand towards Fille to help her get on. She had to sit sideways because of her dress. Just as he said, she couldn't feel the fire even when touching it.

"What are we doing?" she asked.

"Causing a distraction." he answered quietly so that only she could hear him.

The members of Darkness Gang around them were too confused to react in time when Jon turned his horse around and began riding it towards the doors, right after he assured the rest of his friends with a thumbs up that everything would be okay.

"Oh no, you don't!" the villainous leader shouted as she pointed forward, giving her Beedrill a sign to attack the fire Pokemon.

She was left speechless when Rapidash jumped over, not only the bug, but also all of them, on his way to the exit, while barely avoiding scratching the ceiling with his horn. Everybody stood there for a couple seconds, waiting for the woman to give them some order.

"What are you doing?!" she exploded after coming back to her senses "Catch them before they call for help!"

A small group, including the ones with the Venonat, Exeggutor and Chansey, ran after the runaways, leaving only 8 conscious members of Darkness Gang in the room.

"Hmm. That is weird. Why has nobody called for help?" Green pondered, while putting emphasis on the word "has".

"Our phones are jammed." answered some man who overheard him.

"That explains it."

"I've been wondering..." Red spoke up "I think there are a lot more members of Darkness Gang on this ship than the ones we saw here."

"What do you mean?" wondered his rival.

"The chef at the restaurant we ate at said that they had to hire like 20 new people in recent history. Did you know about it, Michael?"

"I didn't. But if I'm thinking what you're thinking, that means that every department has been sabotaged over the last few weeks and subsequently infiltrated by Darkness Gang." answered the sailor.

"Which means that they might have already taken control of the ship and are driving it wherever they want to." pointed out Green.

"What are we going to do about it?" asked a voice which didn't belong to any of the three of them.

When they turned around with suspicion, they saw Phantom Venin who has been lurking behind them. The trio jumped back in surprise.

"What are you doing?!" Michael got rather angry

"Wait up! I came to ask for your help. I hoped that I could run away if I went backstage but there is no exit over there. So I need to go to the doors protected by that Dumbness Gang. I know I'm also a thief but for now we have a common enemy. How about it?" after saying that, he reached out his hand.

"Okay." Red agreed immediately and put his hand on the Phantom's.

"What?!" Michael was shocked.

"Whatever." Green did the same thing as Red.

"What?!"

"Come on, Michael." Red urged him on while smiling from ear to ear.

"Gah! Fine!" the sailor decided to give in.

The group lifted their hands up as a sign of their alliance with both Red and Phantom Venin giving out a happy shout.

"You think you can just ignore us?!" the woman with white hair was getting progressively angrier "Beedrill, Twineedle!"

The bug Pokemon rapidly travelled through the massive room, but the group still got enough time to jump towards the floor. As Red looked up, he realized that the Phantom decided to stand his ground and when Beedrill approached him, he used his wings blow it away. The bug, similar to his trainer, had a short temper and was ready to attack again without needing another command. Green caught onto the fact that before his wings would do anything, Phantom Venin would tap his back in a specific way. This time, the wings turned to steel and shielded him from the oncoming attack.

Beedrill backed away, looking at his arms in despair as he realized that both his stings started to crumble. After seeing a confident smile on the Phantom's face it wanted to turn away and fly off, but it felt something tugging on its leg and keeping it in place. It was a string and on its other end was a happy Caterpie, standing right next to the thief. After that surprise came another one when Phantom Venin's Clefable appeared seemingly out of nowhere and delivered a Mega Kick which caused the string to snap and sent Beedrill into the ceiling only for him to ricochet and land unconscious in front of his trainer. Clefable disappeared again, or at least it would seem like that but when Red and Green took a closer look, they realized that it just somehow became extremely small and jumped onto its trainer's shoulder.

"Hmm. So that's three." Green said while getting up, making sure that the Phantom could hear him.

"That's not nice." the thief understood what he was alluding to "Here I am, helping you out and you're focused on solving how I stole the Crystal Eye."

"We could make it a game. If I deduce all you did correctly, you'll return the Crystal Eye."

"Yeah, sure... No way." the criminal got disturbingly close to his face "My reputation would take a hit. I'm the third best thief in the world."

"That's oddly specific." noted Red.

"Can you focus?" Michael was getting impatient "I have a plan. Hey, crook."

"You mean me?" Phantom Venin pointed a finger at himself, truly surprised.

"Do you think you could carry these two while flying?" Michael asked while reaching for one of his pokeballs.

"I'm not sure. Maybe for a second or two."

"That would be enough. These thugs are all walking towards us. When they're close enough, fly above them and get out. I will stop them."

To get ready for his part in the plan, Michael released from a Poliwhirl who was eagerly awaiting an order.

"Will you be fine?" Red wanted to make sure before leaving the sailor by himself.

"Don't worry. I've been in worse situations... Now!"

When Michael shouted, Red, Green and Caterpie all grabbed onto Phantom Venin as he lifted them up into air and flew above their enemies heads. Although surprised by this move, some of the villains and their Pokemon managed to quickly turn around and were ready to run after the escaping group.

"Ice Beam!"

After hearing the command, Poliwhirl reached forward with his hand which began producing a stream of freezing energy which glued all the gangsters and their Pokemon to the floor. Michael watched his companions land safely and run towards the doors. Before they disappeared from his sight, he and Red exchanged a thumbs-up gesture.

"Now for the finishing touch! Go, Kangaskhan!"

After being sent out, the giant Pokemon landed in front of the entrance, completely blocking it.

"You fool! You've trapped yourself and all these people!" the white haired women yelled out after being freed from the ice by one of the Machokes.

"The only ones trapped here are you. This ship is my home. I won't let you do whatever you want with it." when saying those words, Michael reached for the pokeballs containing the remaining four of his partners.

. . .

"Wow. That guy was pretty hardcore." the Phantom commented after he and the others ran some distance away from the auction room "Well, I guess this is where we part ways."

"What?" Red looked at him with shock.

"I have what I came here for. I won't risk losing it by getting tangled up in this whole thing."

Red grabbed him by the collar and dragged his face uncomfortably close to his own. He looked furious. Green decided he would rather stand back and watch the whole thing play out.

"W-what?" although he would never admit it, in that moment, Phantom Venin got a little scared.

"You're already a part of this! You said you're the third best thief in the world! Well, this ship is full of other thieves and you decided to run! What does that make you?! The fiftieth best thief?! The hundredth?!"

"That's not how it works!"

"Then how does it work?!"

"Have you ever heard about "no honor among thieves"?"

"I'm not even sure what you're talking about!"

"Shut up!" Green finally interjected "Geez. If he wants to go, let him go. If we're lucky he'll run into some of the Darkness Gang and cause a distraction."

Phantom Venin freed himself from Red's grip by pushing the teenager away. After that, he made sure that the two buttons which connected his cape to his tuxedo were properly attached and clean. He turned back and started walking away without a word. After some time, he began flying. The boys watched him leave till he disappeared around some corner.

"What's the plan?" asked Red.

"They jammed the phones but the ship is still moving so if I go to the control room, I may be able to call for some help."

"Do you know the way?"

"I'll manage. But what are you going to do?"

"I'm sure that they captured the chef and people working in all the other restaurants. I'll go free them and send them out to free others. Even if the cooks don't have Pokemon, I hope that Darkness Gang will be afraid of their numbers. There still must be actual security guys somewhere. And we don't even know about other departments. But if every person I free manages to free another one, it will quickly turn into chaos."

"And we can take advantage of that chaos. Okay. See you soon."

They bumped their right fists before leaving in opposite directions.

. . .

"I mean, how dare they?" Phantom Venin was talking, seemingly to himself, while opening a door that led to one of the weather decks, after which, he took to air yet again "What kind of person would risk their life to safe someone they don't know. Especially if that someone is a rich asshole, since from what I saw that's most of the..."

He stopped talking after landing at the bow of the ship. Instead, he started looking around, visibly worried by something.

"Oh no. We have to find them. If those bastards did anything to them..."

Instead of finishing the sentence, he simply started flying again to return from whence he came.

. . .

Red arrived at the restaurant, sneaking by three members of Darkness Gang who were on the lookout. He found the chef and the rest of the staff unconscious and tied up in the kitchen.

"Hey, chef. Hey, chef." the boy talked to him while slapping him lightly on the cheek.

The man woke up and clearly wanted to say something but a patch of tape was covering his mouth. Red showed him a gesture which meant that even after taking it off, he should remain quiet. The restaurant owner listened to the teenager and after that, they began doing the same with all the others.

"What is going on here, boy?"

"It's kind of a long story and I don't know if we have the time. For now, listen. There's three guys right outside. I'm going to run past them. After that you'll swarm them from behind and did what they did to you."

"Okay."

"When you're done, you should check the other restaurants. I'm sure the situation there is similar. If you move fast and en masse, you should have no problem."

"But what about you?"

"I have to check how my friend is doing."

"Alright. Good luck."

After exchanging a handshake, Red run out of the restaurants, surprising the group of gangsters outside. He didn't even turn back to see if they would go after him, but since a couple seconds later nobody caught up to him, he was sure that his plan worked.

. . .

"Who are you?! What are you doing here?! Explain yours..."

The Darkness Gang member encountered by Green was given no chance, as Hitmonlee quickly knocked him out with a precise kick to the back of his head.

"Nighty night." the boy said while trying not to step on the criminal's body, while moving towards what looked like a communication panel.

The boy analyzed what he saw and after deciding that it shouldn't be too hard, sat down in a big, comfy, chair and put on a headset connected by a cable to a lot of machinery. He pressed some buttons and moved a couple of switches to get a connection. After using a dial to stabilize the radio, he began trying to speak through it.

"Hello... Hello. Is anybody receiving this?"

After a couple seconds of static, somebody answered "This is port control. This is a private frequency. Who are you and how did you access it?"

"My name is Green. I'm part of the security on St. Anne. The ship has been taken over by a group calling themselves Darkness Gang. They have Pokemon and there's only five of us against who knows how many of them. We need help."

"I... Can I speak with anyone else?" the person on the other end seemed unsure of whether they could trust this message.

"I just got here and it seems like everybody has been knocked out."

"Alright... I... Wait. You just came into the range of our radar. How's this possible. Did the ship turn around?"

Green looked around, feeling kind of stupid that he didn't notice, but there really was no way till he arrived in that room. He searched around and found machinery which controlled the movements of the ship while also having a map and a radar.

"This doesn't look good." he said after returning to the communication station "They steered us so that we'll swim somewhere south of Vermilion City, and destroyed the control panels. Which means we won't stop until we hit some island. I guess they have a plan to get off the ship before that happens."

"Oh no! I'll ring the alarm! My boss will know what to do. Stay there and wait. We'll see if there's something you can do. But the help will be on its way as soon as possible."

. . .

"I liked the previous movie better." said the woman who invited Blue to Lt. Surge's party, who now sat next to her since the girl didn't know anyone else besides her and the Gym leader who was occupied with making barbecue for the guests.

"Yeah." the girl agreed "All the fighting seems faked."

"That's absurd!" they heard a manly voice behind them.

It was none other than Lt. Surge who gave control over the grill to somebody else since his favorite scene was about to begin. He sat on the grass and began eating the fish shashlik with onion and bell pepper which he just prepared himself.

"This particular actor is famous for doing his own stunts. And he has a third dan in Karate. That's almost as good as me." after saying that, he laughed for a while before he started to eat.

He seemed like a very kind and smart person, and he definitely gave Blue trouble in their Gym battle, but she still thought that he could sometimes come off as too full of himself. That was one of those times.

"Hmm?" the leader looked down when he noticed that his cellphone was vibrating in the pocket of his camo pants.

He put down his paper plate and answered the call. Blue glanced in his direction as she heard him getting louder with each second. He seemed shocked and excited at the same time. Finally, his call ended and he stood up, with fire burning in his eyes. He reached into another pocket and took out a whistle. Seeing that he was going to blow into it, the girl covered her ears, but still was close enough that she could almost feel the sound instead of hearing it. All the other people turned their attention towards the leader and the person responsible for the projector stopped the movie. All the people had serious faces, since they knew that only a serious matter could cause Lt. Surge to stop his movie party. Some started whispering, exchanging ideas on what could have happened.

"You need to move away from this spot. You can return to watching the movie after this but I need what's under us, so move... about 30-40 meters in that direction."

Since the Gym was far from any buildings and surrounded by grass, it seemed weird when the leader wanted them to move to another place on the plain, but nevertheless, everybody listened and walked over there. Suddenly, Blue felt the ground move and the place where they sat before started moving. A rectangular hole opened in the ground and from it appeared a platform with a helicopter. The girl, and around twenty other curious people, walked over to ask the leader what this whole thing was about.

"I've been called onto. The pride of Vermilion City, St. Anne, has been taken over by some damn com... I mean, by a group of criminals." he explained.

"Is it Team Rocket?" somebody asked.

"No. It's the Darkness Gang. They were once the most influential criminal organization in Kanto but since Team Rocket appeared, we haven't heard too much about them. But it seems like they staged a comeback and wanted to make it a big one. We're lucky that some young fella stood up to them and managed to contact port control. They'll try to find some way to help him stop the ship but if those bastards get to him before then, he will be in trouble. That's where I come in. I'm gonna knock some sense into those fools."

Blue stood there paralyzed from the shock. Her face went white as soon as she heard about the young male. Since she thought she saw Red on the ship, there was a high chance that he was the one that contacted the land. And even if that wasn't him, if there was a chance that he was on that ship, she was sure that he would get himself in trouble.

"Let me go with you!" she shouted, not stopping to think of how it may have made her look, or what danger that could put her in if she was allowed to accompany the leader.

"What? No, I ca..."

"She's right!" somebody else interrupted the leader.

"Yeah! What if that ship crashes into the city?" another one spoke up.

"We're also Pokemon trainers! We've fought you before. You should know you can count on us!"

A tear, signifying how proud he was, appeared in :Lt. Surge's eye. He didn't feel like that for many years. But he didn't want to show weakness, so he gathered himself and looked at them with a stern expression.

"Alright. But I can't take all of you. I will take her..." he pointed at Blue "...since I saw her abilities today and I know she's in top form. I'll also take Rockskey, since he was a helicopter pilot. With the ship moving, it will be hard to land so we'll have to jump. I'll take another eight of you. Decide with rock paper scissors. As for the remaining ones, go to the port and ask them if you can be of any help."

"Sir, yes sir!" they shouted while saluting him.

. . .

"Where are they?" the Phantom was getting progressively more worried as he searched the ship "Hm? What's that sound?"

As he looked towards a side corridor, he saw a group of men running at him. He managed to rise above them so that he wouldn't be trampled by them. Judging by their clothes, he thought them to be ship's cooks. After reaching him, one of them jumped up to grab onto the sleeve of his pants.

"What are you doing, assholes?! Leave me alone! I don't have time for this!" he yelled while trying to free himself.

"You try to take over our ship and now try to act innocent?! Don't make me laugh!" responded the man holding onto him.

"I'm not part of Darkness Gang, you idiot! And I certainly don't have time for this! Caterpie!"

The bug Pokemon, who was sitting on one of his trainer's shoulders, used a String Shot on the assailant's face, which distracted him enough for Phantom Venin to get free. After that, he flew away, faster than before, to make sure that he would lose them.

"It seems like this place has become a full-on battlefield. But what happened to my Pokemon?"

. . .

"Pikachu, Thunder Shock!"

The electric rodent jumped off a wall, avoiding a Machoke's punch to land on its head and electrify it with his attack, causing the fighting Pokemon to finally faint after battling it for a couple minutes. The Darkness Gang member, who was commanding the said creature, fell on the floor from shock but still tried to get up to run away, but another attack from the electric mouse put him out of commission.

"How are you holding up, Pikachu?" Red said while kneeling down to pat his companion.

The Pokemon tried to look tough, but it was hard to hide how exhausted he was after taking part in several battles in a row. As he made his way towards where he thought he would find Green, Red tried to stop in one of the Pokemon Centers only to find that the healing machines have been destroyed, no doubt by the Darkness Gang. He already used up most of his potions and it seemed like he was meeting a new enemy at every other step.

"Wait..." the boy stood up "Do you hear? What is that?"

Slowly, he got up and tried peeking behind the corner from where he heard a sound of something approaching them. When he realized that it seemed to be some kind of Pokemon, apparently ready to walk right through them, he grabbed Pikachu and began running from the approaching creature, finally going into a smaller corridor at the end of which were doors leading outside. Once he ran a couple steps past the doors, he turned around, to make sure that the size of that corridor would be enough to stop whatever it was that tried to attack them, but that something decided to prove him wrong.

Parts of the walls and the ceiling came flying as a massive, four armed beast arrived in front of them. It stopped and looked at them menacingly, but after a short while, it decided to make way for a person who looked a lot more human, but still just as dangerous. It was a man who looked like he could be in his sixties, but had a physique of an athlete and was as tall as his Pokemon and as wide as a washing machine. He had an eyepatch, a big scar on his cheek and was smoking a cigar, which added some weird vibe to his look.

"Why would you do that?" the man had a deep voice, but with a touch of melancholy, which somehow made Red immediately think that he would be a good singer "Why would you get in our way like that? We could have stolen those things and you would still have time to jump off the ship. But you just had to get. In. Our. Way."

The man's face and voice became more intense with each word he spoke. Red deduced that the person wanted to get serious from the get-go when he saw him throw away and step on his cigar.

"Machamp..." the man lifted his index and middle fingers which signaled his Pokemon to get ready "...take them down."

The living mass of muscles began approaching Red and Pikachu at an astonishing speed and the only thing the both of them could think of in that moment was to dodge, thinking that if they move in opposite directions, the opponent would be too torn up on who to go after, making him unable to attack either of them. But they miscalculated the reach of his arms. The Pokemon stuck his legs forward to stop himself as he used his bottom arms to get both of them in his grasp. He stood in place, with the wooden floor slightly damaged by his sudden halt, while looking from one to the other, both struggling to get out.

Pikachu was in pain and could think of only one way to free them, but he didn't want to do it since he could end up hurting his trainer. But a faint smile on Red's face told the rodent that the teenager was prepared for it. The electric Pokemon gathered as much energy as it could an released it, electrifying the foe and, by extension, his own trainer. Machamp felt his hands grow weak and dropped both of them. After that, he took a step back to evaluate how to go against such a problematic opponent. Meanwhile, Pikachu gathered itself and jumped over to Red to check up on him. The boy was breathing heavily but managed to prop himself up to finally stand on both legs, however wobbly they were.

"They aren't like those previous guys. That Machamp thing is used to fighting without getting any orders. Since he has four arms..." Red reached towards the pokeballs containing the rest of his team "...I'll fight him with four Pokemon. Go, everybody!"

After being released a couple meters above Machamp, Red's Pokemon had to quickly judge what was going on and adapt to the situation. Charmander and Eevee began by using Ember and Swift respectively. While Machamp was preoccupied with protecting himself from these attacks, Pikachu took the chance and used a Quick Attack on one of the foe's legs, which made him lose his balance and flail all his arms in a hopeless attempt at trying to regain it. The cherry on top was Charmander and Eevee uniting in using their tales as a base for Magikarp's Bounce which instead of going up was directed at the falling opponent. The fighting Pokemon was hit straight in his head and finally collapsed. When everybody landed, they were still wary of whether or not they beat him, which turned out to be a good idea, as the Machamp stood up almost immediately, full of anger to boot.

"This fight has just begun." declared the man from Darkness Gang.

. . .

"You are a monster. How... How is this possible?" the white haired woman, who was leading the part of the villainous organization which attacked the auction room, has fallen to her knees, and although she wanted to, she couldn't bring herself to stand up after what she had just gone through.

Michael stood not too far away, using a piece of tablecloth to stop the bleeding from his arm. Since Red and the others left the place, it got heavily damaged, but the most important part was that all the Darkness Gang members have already been defeated, not only their Pokemon, but also they themselves, after Michael laid his hands on them.

"Let me help you tie that. I was a nurse when I was young." one of the female guest wanted to help the sailor with caring for his wounds.

"Don't worry. If I couldn't take at least this much pain, I couldn't call myself a part of this ship's crew."

"But I must say, I never saw a Pokemon quite like those you used in this battle." commented one older gentleman.

"That's understandable. Since St. Anne swims between Kanto and Johto, some of my Pokemon are from there." explained Michael "But I don't have time to stand around and talk. I have to check how the others are doing. I'll leave Kangaskhan to protect the door so for now, could you tie up these assholes and stay here?"

Nobody responded but the sailor knew that he could take that as a "yes" since all the people there had faces which showed that they were grateful towards him.

"Okay. Tauros!" as he called for his Pokemon, which has been sniffing a Machoke it defeated, it ran over to him "It's time to kick some more butt."

The Pokemon got as low as it could, to allow the man to get on its back, after which they quickly left the room, and Kangaskhan again blocked up the entrance.

. . .

"Get out here, you stupid thing! Or don't you care about your friend?!"

A group of Darkness Gang members and a couple of their Machops and Machokes were gathered in one place, with one of the evolved Pokemon holding Phantom Venin's Porygon in its hands. They also had with them the Exeggutor which was keeping a watchful eye on its surroundings, as if it expected something to appear from thin air.

"If that's how it's going to be, then fine. Machoke, squeeze it harder!" spoke up the same gangster.

In response to that, the Gastly appeared from nowhere and flew as fast as it could towards its friend, but it was still too slow and was hit by a Psyshock from the Exeggutor, which sent it spiraling towards the floor.

"Stupid trash. We won't let you interfere in our plans. Machoke, go pick it up."

As one of the muscular Pokemon reached towards the Gastly which was writhing in pain, it stopped as it felt something below. Suddenly, a bunch of flaming balls appeared at its feet and started rising while circling his body, causing it to get hurt. When the attack reached its head, it finally disappeared, and Machoke fell on his bottom, not completely sure what just happened.

"What is it now?!" Machoke's trainer got irritated and started looking for whomever was responsible for that move.

Finally, he laid his eyes on something, but it was moving too fast for him to immediately recognize what it was, especially since it seemed to be running straight at him. The last thing he saw before going before losing consciousness was the underside of a hoof right before his eyes.

"Who the hell are you?!" one of the other criminals yelled out in panic.

"Someone who came to defeat you." Jon announced from atop his steed.

Fille was still sitting beside him, trying to make scary faces at the other ones, although it was hard for anyone to not consider them kind of cute. To her surprise, Oddish decided to jump out of her hands and approach Gastly. She went after him and saw that he wanted to use Sweet Scent to calm down the ghost Pokemon, since there was no way to help it with its pain.

Fille looked up and saw that Exeggutor was continuing to use Psyshock to torment Gastly. She stood up and did the only things she could think of in that moment, which was to drop kick the palm tree Pokemon. She held onto her dress while in the air to not reveal too much of herself, but her attack was still successful. Exeggutor fell backwards which caused a domino effect as it hit a criminal who fell on another one who dropped onto the Machoke holding Porygon, which allowed the virtual Pokemon to free itself and immediately fly towards its friend to check how it was doing.

"We can't lose like this! Machoke, crush that Porygon!" shouted one of the men while trying to stand up.

The Pokemon which was previously struck by Rapidash's Fire Spin, was already back on his legs and close enough that it could immediately proceed with punching its target. It hesitated a little when it saw Fille jump in the way of its punch, but didn't stop. As its fist sank into the girl's body, she felt like she was about to throw up. She was flung through the corridor and would experience more pain by hitting the floor were it not for her savior.

Phantom Venin grabbed her just in time as he was flying towards the group after noticing his Pokemon from afar. He landed as gently as he could and put the girl on the floor just as she was going unconscious. He bit his lip, ashamed by the thought that he was, in a way, responsible for what just happened. Meanwhile, angered Jon, used Rapidash to run into the one who attacked Fille and send him into a wall.

"I don't like to get serious but..." the Phantom said to himself while grabbing onto the buttons that attached the cape to his suit "...I'm really pissed off."

After throwing away his cape in an overly dramatic way, the thief revealed that the wings on his back didn't belong to him, but in fact to a Golbat who was hiding under it.

Jon jumped off the back of his Pokemon when Phantom Venin approached him. They stood side by side when the prince said "I'll take one half, you'll take the other. How about that?"

"Fine by me."

. . .

"What is that?"

"What are you talking about?"

Two of the people in Lt. Surge's cramped helicopter were looking outside in some indistinct shapes in the water, but they were too high and even the light of the moon wasn't enough to tell whether there really was something there or if they just imagined whatever it was.

"I'm not sure... But maybe... I've been wondering about something. I'm sure Lt. Surge also thought about it."

"What is it? Spill it out?" insisted the other one.

"Since Lt. explained that the ship controls have been destroyed after changing the course, that means that the ship will crash, right?"

"I mean... yeah. But there's still a long way until we reach any island so we're supposed to focus on subduing the Darkness Gang while the eggheads on the ship and in the port come up with a way to stop it."

"I think the thing he's worried about..." interjected Blue "...is how those thieves want to escape? The ship is going too fast to safely get into lifeboats and they can't just all jump into the sea since they would risk damaging the things they plan to steal."

"Which means they are probably doing the same thing as we are." spoke up the leader who has been listening in on their conversation from the co-pilot seat.

"They are using a helicopter!" shouted one of them who until that time didn't arrive at the same conclusion as the others.

"Or multiple helicopters, or an airship." added Blue.

"Then what are we going to do? What if we defeat all the bad guys but more arrive by air?" asked one of the people.

"Even if they have a plan to escape by air, the crew of whatever they arrive in should be minimal since they would need a place to fit all the riches and the ones who stole them." explained the leader "If we see anyone in the sky, we'll try to contact them. If they don't answer within 10 seconds, I'll shoot them down."

After those last words, the leader hit an open palm with a fist while smiling as if he really wanted that to open. Some of the people looked at others to make sure if they were just as afraid of what that statement meant.

. . .

Green looked on as the people responsible for steering the ship were running in amok while trying to find a way to salvage the controls. One of them even ran into him and continued onward without looking if the boy was okay.

"Could you not stand in our way?!" another one yelled at him.

"I just wanted to make sure that you're not attacked again." he tried reasoning with him.

"There is no need for that! Earlier they took us by surprise but right now we're ready to dealt with anyone who comes in here!" the man yelled while pointing, first toward an unneeded pipe he attached to his belt and then to a couple fire extinguishers they prepared in a safe spot.

"Okay. You take care of yourselves. I will check how's the situation in other places." he explained before going out the door with his Hitmolee.

Once outside, he stretched for a while before saying quietly "I hope Red is doing okay."

After that, both he and his Pokemon launched forward as fast as they could.

. . .

Red tried to dodge the fastest he could but was still hit by his Magikarp who has just been effortlessly thrown by the Machamp they were fighting against. The boy took the brunt of the damage when he hit the floor and cut open his forearm. Magikarp got off him and looked rather worried, but his trainer quickly removed the upper part of his suit, rolled up the sleeve of his dress shirt and tore off a piece of the jacket to tie it around his wound. He was worried during those seconds since the rest of his Pokemon were still occupied with fighting and although he trusted them, he felt less worried when he could command them in the battle. When he was done with stopping the bleeding, he looked up and saw Eevee trying to distract Machamp with Mirror Room while Charmander and Pikachu attacked him with Ember and Thunder Shock from a safe distance.

"Machamp, stop playing around!" yelled the eye-patched man "Use Bulk Up!"

The fighting Pokemon listened which meant that he flexed his muscles, increasing his strength and durability. This was used to lessen the damage he was taking from Charmander and Pikachu and to prepare him for the next move.

"Now use Low Sweep!"

Machamp spun around while sticking out its leg. He was fast enough to hit all of Eevee's afterimages and even the real one. When he felt the opponent being hit by his shin, he changed the direction to fling him upward in order to avoid him dodging his next attack.

"Cross Chop!"

Machamp formed and "X" with its upper arms just as they began to glow with energy and jumped towards Eevee. Red instantly arrived at the only possible option at that moment "Charmander, shoot down Eevee!"

Without hesitation, the lizard shot out a volley of fiery bullets which hit the dog from the side and pushed him out of Machamp's way just as he was about to be hit. Eevee recovered in air and landed gracefully next to Pikachu. After a short while, the fighting Pokemon also arrived back at the deck.

"That was a bold move, but a clever one too." commented the gangster "Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve?"

Red didn't want to get distracted by a conversation and proceeded to giving his next order "Eevee! It's time to use the thing we've been working on! Swift Version B!"

Knowing what he was supposed to do, the dog closed its eyes to focus. This new attack took a couple seconds longer to charge than the regular one which was almost instant but thankfully both Machamp and his trainer were careful not to attack before seeing what they opponents wanted to do. To their surprise, it seemed like the attack was somehow supposed to involve Pikachu as he and Eevee both began using Quick Attack to advance towards their foe.

"Superstar!" shouted Red.

Eevee opened its mouth but both of the Pokemon were moving too fast for Machamp to realize what was happening. Instead of releasing a group of small stars, the dog released a single star which was about half the size of his body. His foe realized that just as he was about to be hit in the face. The thing he didn't notice was that for a short while, Pikachu sat on the starshaped projectile and jumped off it at just the right time.

While Machamp was completely occupied with protecting his face and chest, he left his back completely open, which gave the electric Pokemon a chance to use Iron Tail on the back of his opponents head. Machamp's eyes went completely white and for a fraction of a second he felt as if he lost control of his body, but he got recovered almost instantly only to realize to painful what he just went through was. He reached backwards with his upper arms and caught the rodent with one of them. Before Red could give any of his Pokemon a new command, the enraged Machamp slammed Pikachu into the floor. He lifted him up and did it again. And again. And again.

"Enough!" yelled his trainer.

Machamp stopped himself and slowly regained his senses. He realized that his opponent was not only badly bruised but also passed out. He backed off a couple steps.

"We still have the other ones to take care of." reminded him the gangster.

Red silently returned Pikachu back to his pokeball and lowered his cap so that his eyes wouldn't be visible while he was cleaning them from tears which started gathering when he realized he couldn't save his Pokemon from being hurt.

"There's something we still haven't tried out." Red said to his remaining part of his team, who slowly backed off and were within 2 meters of him "I didn't want to do it because I felt... I didn't want to lose... But because of my selfishness Pikachu was hurt... Charmander... Use Smokescreen!"

"What?!"

The Darkness Gang member couldn't do anything when the fire Pokemon released a thick cloud of black smoke from his mouth. Machamp knew better than trying to find his opponents while blinded so he waited in one spot, but this actually gave Red and his team a chance to run away, since when the smoke cleared, they were nowhere to be seen.

"Don't worry, Machamp. You put the fear in that boy. Now I'm sure that we won't see him again."

. . .

"What the hell is that sound?" Michael asked himself while searching one of the uppermost decks in hope of finding one of the people he helped get out of the auction room.

He looked above for where the noise came from and was subsequently blinded by a light which he soon after realized to be coming from a helicopter flying above the ship. He raised one hand above his eyes to allow him to better see something he noticed approaching him from the direction of the aircraft. When he realized what, or rather who it was, he immediately changed the position of his hand stood straighter to salute the arrival of Lt. Surge who descended by hanging onto his Magneton.

"Stand down, Michael."

"You remember me, Sir?" the sailor was shocked.

"Hahaha. A good soldier needs to have good memory. I remember every person who won the Thunder badge and that's not a lot of people, I must say. I don't like to brag, but I win 90% of Gym battles. If not for me, the Pokemon League would probably last a month. The fact that you won against me definitely makes you a person worth remembering."

"Thank you, Sir." the sailor bowed, but this caused him to feel pain in his back which was left over as one of the mementos of the auction room battle.

"Okay, okay. Let's get down to business."

They talked for a while with Michael explaining everything he knew about the situation on the ship. Meanwhile, the group who came with Lt. Surge got down on the deck, but in a more traditional manner, that is, by using a rope ladder.

"So we don't know how many hostiles remain, we don't know if the helicopter pad is safe. we don't know how they're planning to escape and we don't know if it's possible to stop the ship. That's a lot unknowns, but I've worked with worse." summarized the leader "Alright. It's not much but the plan for now is that I'll let Rockskey know to return to Vermilion since we can't just have him hang above us and waste fuel. The rest of us, that's 11 including you Michael, are gonna split in 3 teams. I'll lead the first one, you'll lead the second and..."

"10 people." one of the people interrupted.

"What?" Lt. Surge looked at that person in confusion.

"There's 10 of us here. I think the one who is missing is that Blue girl." they explained.

The leader looked around to make sure that wasn't a mistake but it turned out the girl was really gone.

Meanwhile, not far away, the runaway girl was frantically looking around while running through the corridors. Even though she wasn't sure, something like an instinct was telling her that Red was on that ship, and if he was, she knew that he would get himself in some dangerous situation. She started repeating in her mind that that everything would be okay, to calm herself down, but that only made her more worried.

. . .

"There's one of them!" a member of Darkness Gang who managed to notice Green, pointed in the direction of the boy who was running towards stairs leading to a higher floor, since he noticed that the elevators were disabled.

When he heard them, he didn't waste any time and threw forward three pokeballs which released Ivysaur, Jigglypuff and Nidorina. The 3 gangsters whom he faced and an equal number of Machokes, decided to stand on guard, to prepare themselves for the attacks that would surely be coming at them from Green's team.

"Razor Leaf! Disarming Voice! Poison Sting! Jump Kick!" the teenager ordered.

"Wait, what was that last one?" one of the gangsters asked, confused by the fact that Green gave 4 orders while they could only see 3 of his Pokemon.

While the group of Machokes stood with their arms put up to protect their torsos and faces, something astonishingly quick started travelling between the walls, the floor and ceiling, bouncing off and avoiding all the attacks which were hitting the Machokes. Finally, Hitmonlee revealed itself by landing right between the Darkness Gang members. Before they could warn their Pokemon, Hitmonlee leapt forward to kick one of the fighting Pokemon in the back of the head. This not only hurt that one, but also caused him to drop his guard and become an easier target for Ivysaur's leaves. When the other two noticed what happened it was already too late.

"Double Kick!"

While still in air, Hitmonlee spun around while extending both his legs to knock out the two foes. The rest of Green's team stopped their attack once they saw that the victory was theirs. When Hitmonlee turned towards the criminals, his judgmental eyes caused them so much terror that they grabbed each other by their collars and hit their heads together, which made all of them pass out. Green decided to check up on them just to be sure that it wasn't a trap. Right as he was doing that, he heard a voice behind him.

"Green! So you are safe!"

When he turned around, he saw the unusual alliance of Jon and Phantom Venin approaching him. The unconscious Fille was hanging from the Rapidash while the prince was walking beside it. Curiously, the Phantom was also on foot, and accompanied by a Golbat, a Porygon and a Gastly who were flying right behind him. Red's Oddish was sleeping atop the head of Clefable who didn't seem to mind, while the final Pokemon, Caterpie, was still sticking to its trainer's shoulder.

"What made you change your mind?" Green asked while looking at the thief.

"I just don't like to owe people anything." he answered while glancing at Fille.

"I'm not sure what that means but... whatever. Did you meet anyone besides me? I mean, someone not from Darkness Gang?"

"Yeah." responded Phantom Venin "It seems like various other people have begun fighting back against Dumbness Gang. The problem is that they keep mistaking me for one of the villains."

"You are." interjected Jon.

"What?"

"A villain."

The Phantom looked at him as if the prince said something unbelievable "I mean... In a sense, you're right. But I'm too lovable to be confused with one of those styleless thugs. I don't hurt anybody. I'm not a bad person."

"Then want to prove it?" Green asked with a confident smirk.

"What? Oh... You mean to tell me you've finally figured out how I stole the Crystal Eye?"

"Every detail."

"Okay." the Phantom took out the Crystal Eye from his bag and held it in front of his face while making a serious face "If you're right, this is yours. Thief's honor."

"Well, you said that there's no honor among..."

"Alright, alright. I swear on... what can I swear on?"

"I... Your father or mother?"

"Got it. I swear on my mother. To hell with the other one."

That last expression made the other two raise a brow in curiosity of what the Phantom's family relations looked like.

"You can begin."

"You can't fly. You wear a cape to hide a Golbat which attaches to your back. At first I thought you used your mask, but after a while I noticed those buttons that you attach your cape with. They're masked cameras which connect to something on your back which allows Golbat to see what's in front of you. Even then, to not reveal the secret behind your trick, you don't give him orders. Instead, you tap on him in a specific manner to let him know what to do. Now that I saw that you have a Porygon and a Gastly, I deduced that you had them sneak into the room responsible for controlling the lights and the sound system in the auction room. Gastly took control over a possible guard and made him knock himself out while Porygon changed himself into data to flick the lights and play that shitty song. While everybody was confused by what was happening, your Caterpie used String Shot to glue the fake security guards to the floor. I'm not sure in which part of the auction room you were before you began your whole act but I suspect that long before you even approached the stage, Clefable was already there, using Minimize to hide itself. When the pedestal with the Crystal Eye appeared, Clefable reverted back to its normal size in a moment when the room was dark and minimized again mid-air to finally land next to the glass. He was so small that he could fit between the pedestal and the glass, so he didn't trigger the trap. He became big again, grabbed the gem, shrunk again and escaped from there. Then he enlarged to give you the Crystal Eye and used Minimize for the last time before you used him in battle. The thing is, even with the lights going on and off and that music, people would have noticed that you flew above them. So the only conclusion is that you didn't fly. You have a sixth Pokemon, one who can use the move Teleport. Probably an Abra, since having an evolved one would create a bigger risk of someone seeing him and realizing how you did it."

For the next several seconds, Phantom Venin stood with his mouth agape from shock, while Jon was quickly looking between the Phantom and Green, not sure why the thief reacted in such a way.

"Are... Are you some kind of natural genius? Telepath maybe?" Phantom Venin tried to find some explanation while panicking over the fact that he lost the bet because of his overconfidence.

"Nope. I just like Pokemon a lot." Green answered with a honest smile on his face, which somehow didn't quite fit the opinions the other two have created about him.

The teenager reached out towards the thief, who was still a little astonished but somehow managed to come to his senses and handed over the Crystal Eye.

"Alright." Green said while hiding the gem in his pocket "We wasted enough time here. I don't believe that the woman in the auction room is in charge of this whole operation, so we still need to find their boss while taking out any other ones we meet."

"At least when I'm with you, there will be less chance of someone mistaking me for a villain." commented the Phantom who looked like he was trying to deal with the sadness over the loss of Crystal Eye.

"But you are a villain." quickly reminded him Jon.

. . .

Avoiding places overrun by the released cooks and sailors facing off against the Darkness Gang members, Red and his Pokemon managed to reach a sub-floor which contained a laundry room and a janitor's closet. He fell on his bottom in front of a washing machine before he even had a chance to turn on the light.

Thankfully, Charmander's tail lit up the immediate area as the boy and his team of Pokemon were trying to catch their breaths after their fast escape from the frighteningly strong gangster and his Machamp. After taking a little while to rest, Magikarp, who had to be carried by the trainer, signaled that he wanted to be placed on the floor alongside the others, by wiggling around.

"Oh, right." the teenager realized what that meant and fulfilled his wish.

While the group of Pokemon were looking up at their trainer, he was occupied with staring at Pikachu's pokeball which he held in his hand since the electric Pokemon lost his battle. Magikarp became worried about the situation and lowered his gaze, while the other two gasped in shock when they saw tears slowly appear in Red's eyes and travel down his cheeks. The boy held up the pokeball against the lower side of his forehead, although careful not to press the button. He continued crying while trying to come up with something that would solved the problem of how he felt at that moment.

"I'm sorry, Pikachu... This is all my fault."

Charmander looked around, unsure of what to do, when he noticed that the other two also started crying. He was just as devastated as them but he would consider it a hit to his pride if he broke down like the rest of the group. Still, he felt helpless. All he knew how to do was fighting and that wouldn't be of any use in a situation such as the one they were in. Or would it?

"I should have never ordered you to fight against somebody that strong..."

Suddenly, Red felt an immense pain in the same place he was wounded before. It was the same arm which held the pokeball, so it caused the ball to fall out of the boys hand and into his lap. When he opened his eyes, still full of tears, he saw that the cause of this was Charmander who bit into the place Red tied the sleeve of his suit around. He quickly cleaned his eyes with the other hand while enduring the pain. More than caring about what he was going through, he wanted to understand why the lizard would do such a thing.

"Charmander, what is going on?" he asked while slowly petting the Pokemon's head.

The other two also stopped crying and were looking at this unusual scene with curiosity. After a while the fire Pokemon released the boy's arm and looked at him with an angry expression, as if that stunt was somehow a message that the trainer was supposed to understand. Worried that it didn't work, the lizard jumped back and signaled the other ones to step back. After they listened to his request, he closed his eyes to focus for a couple seconds, after which the flame on his tail grew several times in size, to finally envelop his body. The Pokemon released the loudest and fiercest roar it could. Red used his memory to go earlier in the day and remembered how Charmander behaved similarly when they fought against Michael and Kangaskhan. That time it was caused by Charmander feeling that Red treated him as if he was not worthy enough to fight his own fights to the end.

"I understand that you wanted to win but it just wasn't possible!" the boy shouted while standing up "That wasn't a normal battle after which you can just get healed in a Pokemon Center! I don't want to risk you getting hurt!"

After hearing that, the lizard jumped forward and hit Red's wound with his flaming head. The piece of cloth quickly burned up while the wound cauterized a little. The boy was in pain and he was still bleeding slightly so he had to grab it again. While dealing with that, Red realized that it wasn't pride which Charmander cared about. The thing he wanted was trust, and not just any trust but one that goes both ways. The boy kneeled down one leg while still enduring the pain.

"I think I finally got what you wanted to say..." he said.

Hearing that, the lizard caused its flames to go back to normal and looked at the boy, still unsure if they really managed to understand each other.

"...How can I be such a selfish hypocrite? We're a team after all. I was worried about any of you getting hurt while I had no problem about getting hurt myself. But you also don't want me getting hurt..."

A slight smile appeared on Charmander's face, while the other Pokemon listened to what the boy had to say and started thinking about how they felt about the whole situation.

"...I know that I probably can't win against that guy but that never should have stopped me from trying. When you became part of my team, all of you made an unspoken promise that you would fight together with me, and I was the one to break it... I just want to make sure... before I return to face that guy... There a ton of innocent people on this ship that could lose their lives, so I'm going to put my own life on the line to stop that. Can I count on you waging your lives together with mine?" after that last question, he reached forward with his hurt arm with the hand formed into a fist.

Almost instantly, the trio of Pokemon put their paw, hand and fin on the boy's hand.

"Alright! It's time to kick some ass or die trying." after standing up, Red quickly remembered about his wound which he somehow forgot in his excitement "But first... Let's seal this up completely."

. . .

"Mr. Eisen!"

The man who previously fought Red was searching for any other people who would dare to oppose him, while he heard a voice call out his name. He turned around and saw that it was one of his subordinates who looked like he was beat up by somebody. He was barely able to walk and as soon as he reached his superior, he was about to collapse, but the massive man caught him by the collar and lifted so that they would be on the same eye level.

"Who did this to you?" he asked in a voice that well masked how ashamed he was that his people would lose to anyone.

"It... It... It was him." the man barely got the sentence out while pointing towards the doors through which he arrived on that particular weather deck.

He threw the pathetic excuse for a gangster over the railing, causing him to land on a table a couple meters down, probably breaking several bones. He didn't want anyone interrupting what was about to happen, since while squinting his one eye to see the approaching silhouette, he slowly began to feel like he recognized it. When that someone finally stepped out of the dark corridor and into the moonlight, a big smile arrived on Eisen's face. The person was indeed someone whom he knew all too well. It was Lt. Surge.

The gym leader looked even more excited than before since he also recognized the criminal "Long time no see... Sgt. Faust Eisen."

The man laughed loudly in response while putting one hand on his belly "Oh man... That's good. You're gonna use my rank? Do you order people to call you Lieutenant? We're not in army anymore."

"You say that you're not in army but you still seem to be fighting a war." Surge said while making a more serious expression.

"Because the war never ended. We didn't win anything. Some stupid bureaucrats signed some deal to end it, but if we fought just a little longer we could have won it! What was the point to all of that? They told us we would be heroes but all we did was kill... villages full of people... And when it was all "over"? We returned home and everybody forgot. No one here cared about the war since it took place halfway around the world. We got some stupid medals and were left on ice. With what we experienced there, how do they expect people to just build new lives for themselves? We don't have families, we can't get good jobs... This is the only way. I..."

"Enough."

"I feel power again..."

"I said enough!" the leader yelled, visibly angry.

Faust realized that he was breathing heavily and sweating all over his face. It was a long time since he lost control like that and he didn't want it to cloud his judgement, especially since he knew how strong Surge could be.

"There is no use in talking to you." decided the leader "So I'm just going to bring you down. Go, Raichu!

The electric mouse appeared from its pokeball on all fours, ready to begin the attack as soon as it would receive the order to do so.

"Cutting to the chase like always, I see. I won't keep you waiting anymore. Destroy our enemies, Machamp!"

The four-armed Pokemon materialized a couple meters above the deck and, while falling, stretched out its lowers arms to land more lightly. The floorboards still broke a little, but the beast didn't care about it. Instead, it moved it opened its arms so that they looked like an "X" while roaring loudly. After that, both the Pokemon and their trainers stared each other down for a good couple seconds, which was actually a time during which they were trying to predict what the other ones would do.

Since the men knew well about the tactics the other one used in the past, it was hard for either of them make the beginning move. Even if one of them arrived at a good plan at that moment, it was not possible to put it into action. Suddenly, the whole ship shook. Since both men were so concentrated, they didn't get a chance to catch onto the railing and both fell down. When Surge got up, he started looking around for an explanation as to what just happened, but it seemed like Faust already knew since he began laughing again.

"What's going on here?!" Surge yelled at him.

He soon got his answer when he noticed that something was obscuring the moonlight from reaching them. He couldn't clearly tell what it was but it looked like some enormous, grey snake. The leader quickly called out his Magneton and used it to fly to a higher place. When he landed on one of the roofs, he realized with a terrified expression that St. Anne has just been stopped enveloped by tentacles of an abnormally large Tentacruel who seemed to have a metallic dome attached to the top of its body.

"So that's how they plan to escape?!"

"Owww. Did we finally hit an island or something?" a voice came from below.

Surge carefully descended from the roof to see who it was. Since he never met him before, when he saw Red, who was bleeding from his forehead, he took him as one of the passengers.

"Are you alright?" the leader asked.

"Uh... Yeah. I just hit my head when the ship started shaking. Do you know what's going on? Are we going to sink?" the boy said while looking around, with Eevee hanging from his arm.

"No... At least not yet, I hope. But you shouldn't be wandering around the ship anyway. I have two big problems to deal with. I can't do that and protect you, so you should hide somewhere."

"Hide? What are you talking about? I have to find..." Red stopped since he just then saw what was happening "...What the hell is that giant thing?!"

"That's what I was trying to..."

"Aaah! He's down there!" the boy yelled after seeing Faust a little below them "Oh man. How am I gonna deal with him and that big whatever it is all alone? What is Green doing during all this?"

"Calm down!" Surge shook him by grabbing the only sleeve the teenager still had "Why are you talking like you came here to save the day?! Who are you?!"

"Who am I?! More like, who are you?!"

Suddenly, they had to stop talking when they realized that the giant Tentacruel raised one of its tentacles and sent it in their direction. It wasn't terribly fast, but they still barely dodged it because of its massive size. They jumped lower and landed right next to Faust whom they immediately noticed to be holding a communication device.

"I thought the communications were jammed." Red tried to wrap his head around what was happening while getting himself up from the floor.

"Only short length communications, and not all of them. Our scientist made sure there was wavelength that I could use to contact our mobile aquatic base. But even if you found out what that wavelength was, it wouldn't help you." explained Eisen.

"What do you want to accomplish here? Right now, my people are fighting against yours." said Lt. Surge.

"My people too. I managed to free a group of cooks and, from what I have seen, right now the whole ship is in chaos. The only problems now are you and that oversized squid." added Red.

"Yes. It seems like this is a loss for us. There's no sense in trying to get the items put up for auction. That's why I'll contact the ones in our base and have them crush this ship by using Tentacruel... As soon as I deal with you two, that is."

"You should count again." a familiar voice sounded from above.

The three of them looked up and saw Green and Phantom Venin descending from the sky while hanging onto the latter's Golbat. They landed halfway between the gangster and their allies. Red immediately ran over to them and hugged Green.

"You're safe!" he shouted "You don't know how worried I've been!"

"Stop clinging onto me. Besides, you look like you've been to hell and back. How reckless were you?" responded his rival.

"And you returned?" Red completely ignored Green's remark, instead turning his attention to the Phantom who tried to hide how embarrassed he was, since Red seemed to regain his trust towards him.

"I... Yeah, I'm back. But how did the situation turn into this?!" the thief asked while pointing above giant tentacles slowly moving above them.

Red shrugged "Welllll... We just have to beat that thing."

"I don't think you understand what the word "just" mea..." the Phantom started, but was immediately interrupted by a mix of wind, electricity and a loud sound, which caused him to flinch.

When he looked to the side, he realized that he was saved, probably at the last second, by Lt. Surge's Raichu who stopped Machamp's punch with his Volt Tackle. The four-armed Pokemon jumped back.

"What is wrong with you people?!" shouted Lt. Surge "This isn't a goddamn tea party where you can just chit-chat all you like. If you aren't gonna fight, get the hell out of here!"

"Alright." Green assumed a more serious expression as he began to analyze the situation "Red!"

"Yes?"

"Can you handle this guy by yourself?" the rival asked while pointing towards Faust.

Red hesitated a little, but after looking at Eevee, he grew in confidence "Absolutely!"

After saying that, he stepped in front of Surge and his Pokemon who were clearly ready to begin fighting against Machamp.

"What are you on about?!" the leader yelled angrily at Green.

"Red doesn't have any flying Pokemon so he can't get high enough to deal with that. We're gonna need you and your Magneton!"

While the two of them were occupied with that, Red released Charmander and Magikarp from their pokeballs and eyed down Eisen.

"Huh... So you return for more. I see that you've also began to crave for battle." Faust smiled while licking his lip, looking more fierce than the boy remembered.

Meanwhile, the other three already flew up to a significant height. Surge and Raichu held onto Magneton, Phantom Venin yet again attached Golbat to his back while also lending his Porygon to Green. As they ascended even more, Green glanced towards the entrance to the corridor where they left Jon to protect Fille, since having them there for the fight against the Tentacruel would be too troublesome.

"This place will be your grave, boy!" Faust shouted "Machamp, kill them all!"

The fighting Pokemon didn't need any more orders. It used Bulk Up to pump itself up even more before starting to run towards the group of enemies.

"Charmander, Smokescreen!"

The lizard released from his mouth a dark cloud which surrounded and blinded their opponent.

"This again?!" shouted Faust who, although Red couldn't see him, sounded like he was getting impatient "If you think you're gonna run away again, you're mistaken!"

Machamp started blindly attacking in random directions. Using his keen fighting sense, he knew that the foes were somewhere close to him so he decided to put his luck to a test.

"For someone that strong, that guy doesn't seem very smart." Red commented to Charmander who was patiently waiting in front of his trainer "If he was, he would knew this was a set up for our next move. We talked about it for like 30 seconds while running here so let's hope for the best... Eevee, use Quick Attack Version C!"

The dog began running in circles around their opponent just like he would while preparing for Mirror Room, but at a precisely right moment, Magikarp also jumped into the fray. The water Pokemon used Bounce. Eevee was running in patterns that would allow the fish to use him as a platform to bounce back right after hitting the opponent. Since the speed of Bounce grew exponentially, the dog also had to give it his all by keeping up. At that point, both of them were so focused that they couldn't even tell if they attacks were damaging the Machamp. They only learned of their success when the fighting Pokemon's guard broke down and one of the attacks caused him to fly a couple meters up and crash into the floor with a huge impact. When they saw that, they stopped. The two of them were breathing heavily while also looking satisfied with what they accomplished. Meanwhile, their trainer looked at Faust's shocked face through the dissipating cloud while announcing this new combination's name "Bouncy Castle!"

The gangster gathered himself surprisingly quick and, while coldly staring down Red, ordered his Pokemon "Machamp. Get up this instant."

The four-armed monster didn't move for a short while, making Red unsure of how he should proceed but when he saw that it began using two of its arms to prop itself up while getting to a sitting position, he immediately gave another command "Charmander, Flame Charge!"

The fighting Pokemon saw his opponent approaching but still hasn't recovered from the previous attack, so the scorching tackle from the lizard knocked it back, further destroying the floor. It got through the pain and managed to use one of its arms to take a swing at Charmander who was standing on its chest, but thanks to the effect of Flame Charge, the fire Pokemon was fast enough to do a backwards somersault and use Ember to shoot at the opponent while in air, causing Machamp to be set on fire.

Faust wiped sweat from his forehead but tried to remain calm "Machamp... Get. Up."

The Pokemon used its sheer will to get through the pain and while roaring loudly, it used all of its arms to free himself from being stuck in the floor and to go up a couple meters into air. While there, it used another Bulk Up. While still burning, with fury in its eyes, it assumed the stance used for Cross Chop as it began falling towards Red. The boy tried to jump back but was too slow.

He closed his eyes in fear and felt something hit him before he fell to the floor. It was less painful than he thought it would be, but when he opened his eyes, he saw the reason for that. Magikarp must have used Bounce to jump in front of him and the thing he felt was the fish's body falling on top of him. The water Pokemon lost consciousness from that powerful hit, so the boy immediately returned it to its pokeball and looked at Machamp who, instantly after defeating one opponent, decided to change its target and started running towards Charmander who was somewhere behind it.

. . .

While Red's battle was taking place, Green and the others managed to get up high enough that they would have a good view of the dome on Tentacruel's head. The one's controlling it must have recognized them as a threat since a couple giant tentacles started immediately moving in their direction. The three of them managed to swerve and avoid them since their speed was less worrisome than their size.

"So? You acted like you have some kind of plan, boy genius?" Phantom Venin asked while looking at Green.

"I swear, if you call me "boy genius" again, I will chokeslam you." the boy answered without actually showing any anger.

"Wait, what?"

"More importantly..." Green continued while ignoring the Phantom "...You just have to get inside while we distract Tentacruel."

The thief looked in direction of the dome, trying to understand what Green had in his mind, while dropping a little to avoid another tentacle attack "That's your plan? I know I'm the third best thief in the world but I think you're expecting a little too..."

"Abra, then Clefable and Gastly."

"Wha-? I..." the Phantom stopped for a short while to decipher why the teenager listed his Pokemon in that order, and when he finally reached a conclusion he immediately took out one of his pokeballs "Alright. I've got it. Go, Abra!"

The psychic Pokemon got a big scare when it realized how high it was released but calmed down when it saw that it was held in its trainer's arms.

"Teleport us over there." the thief ordered while pointing towards the dome.

Before he could tell, they were already standing on top of the metal building. From up close, it seemed smaller than what he first thought. He was about to take out the next two pokeballs when he saw two parts of the dome raise and reveal what looked like guns pointed at him. Both of them shot out what looked like electrified nets, but using clever maneuvering and Golbat's Air Slash, he managed to come out unscathed. Without wasting any more time, he sent Clefable and Gastly out of their pokeballs. Both of them managed to slip into the dome, hopefully without being noticed, the first one by using its Minimize trick and the other thanks to its gaseous form allowing it to fit between the plating.

After a couple moments, a hatch in the middle of the dome, which hand no handles or any other way to get in manually from the outside, opened, revealing Clefable who used its fingers to make a victory sign to its trainer. The Phantom jumped inside and looked at three members of Darkness Gang who were knocked out thanks to his Pokemon. He went towards the console which must have been responsible for controlling the giant Pokemon since it showed various graphs focused on its state and responsiveness.

"Soooo... If I smash this thing, it'll stop following its directive or whatever and go away? Then let's get to it!" after saying that, he lifted his leg and smashed it down into the machinery, causing a wave of electrical discharges to run through the entire thing. Thankfully, he had rubber shoes which prevented him from getting zapped.

"Oookay. Now what?"

Suddenly, the dome started to shake, and before he could grab onto something, the thief landed on the floor. He quickly hid all of the Pokemon beside Golbat in their pokeballs before going outside through the hatch to check out what was going on. When he saw one of the tentacles about to smash him and the building, he ordered Golbat to give it its all, and the thief barely managed to escape and meet up with the other two who were also busy avoiding the tentacles.

"What's going on?! I did what you wanted!" he yelled at Green.

"I guessed correctly that Darkness Gang couldn't control something so big but I was wrong in thinking it would just leave the ship alone after being freed. It probably realized that it was being controlled against its will and since we're the first ones it saw, it thinks we're responsible." explained the teenager.

"What now?!"

"We fight!" announced Lt. Surge.

When another tentacle moved in his direction, he took out a knife and used it to stab into the giant Pokemon so that he could hang onto it. He soon took out another knife to get himself a better hold. All this time, Raichu was grabbing onto its trainer's leg.

"Raichu, use Volt Tackle!"

The electric Pokemon climbed the leader's body and struggled for a while to not be thrown off from the tentacle, but after getting a good grip on the situation, it caused it's body to be covered in electricity as it run towards Tentacruel's head at an amazing speed, finally delivering a powerful attack. The giant beast seemed to notice it, and even felt the pain, but it was probably like a human being hit with a ping-pong ball.

Nonetheless, the leader managed to get its attention. In fact, he hoped that it would be too focused on fighting him and the other two trainers to deal any damage to the ship. Unfortunately for them, after noticing that Lt. Surge was climbing of the tentacles, it started swinging it around, finally deciding that the best way to get rid of him would be to crush him into the ship. The leader managed to jump off, and after losing sight of him, the water Pokemon lifted the tentacle from the hole it made in one of the roofs.

"I haven't felt a thrill like this in a long time." Surge said to himself happily after jumping down into the corridor bellow, since he didn't want the opponent to see him approaching.

It turned out that Raichu was also thrown off and followed him inside the ship.

"What is going on out there?" the leader heard a familiar voice while trying to guess the quickest way back to the place above which the battle was taking place.

It was Michael and a couple of the people who came with him from Vermilion, including Blue, who previously disappeared, with a Zubat sitting on her shoulder.

"How do I say this? We're... fighting like a main boss from a video game, while also having one person fight a real main boss." the leader answered.

Blue stepped in front of the group, visibly worried "Is there a boy called Red fighting together with you?"

"Uh... Yeah. Kinda. We have to stop the giant monster so he's alone right... And there she goes..." before the man could finish, the girl already ran off as fast as she could "...But what about you guys? Have you handled the other ones?"

"It seems so." said the sailor "We've also managed to find the device which was jamming communications so I'm in contact with the control room. They'll let me know if they manage to regain control of the ship."

"Okay then. Can you lend me your communicator?"

"What for?" the sailor asked, even though he was already handing over the device.

"I think there is something that may help us."

"Do you want us to come with you?"

"No, no. We'll deal with this somehow. You have to search the ship for any injured people. I saw a person who hit themselves in the head during that shaking before. We don't know if someone hasn't been badly wounded in some way."

"Yes, Sir!" Michael and the others saluted the leader before splitting up to search for anybody who could need help.

Meanwhile, Lt. Surge followed in Blue's footsteps, although he almost lost sight of her.

. . .

"Charmander, run away!" Even though there was little time, Red made sure to give an order which made it clear that the lizard was supposed to escape the oncoming attack on foot, rather than through air.

The fire Pokemon listened and started sprinting with its increased speed being enough to dodge the swings of Machamp's punches, but instead of avoiding it completely, he went between the opponent's legs and used his claws on both of them before ending up on the other side and stopping himself by scratching up the floor. The fighting Pokemon slowly turned around, while looking menacingly. Before it had a chance to do anything, something flashed before its eyes and it turned its head to see what it was. Phantom Venin looked at it with a big grin while starting to ascend as a part of what looked like an arch fly-by.

Machamp barely had a chance to look in the other direction when it heard something else approaching. One of Tentacruel's tentacles, probably trying to follow the thief, came down in a swinging motion. Red and his Pokemon, as well as Faust, were far enough that they only felt the rippling wind, but Machamp had nowhere to run and took the full force of the hit. It swept it up and sent it somewhere high and far, beyond anyone's sight. They stood there for a short while, with their mouths ajar, not able to believe what just happened.

Finally, Red turned towards the gangster "Sooo... You've got any more Pokemon?"

Judging from how embarrassed and angry the man looked, the boy deduced that, in some weird way, the victory was his. Then, Eisen tried to run away but without needing to receive any orders, Charmander enveloped itself in fire and, in an instant, he and Eevee used Flame Charge and Quick Attack to deliver powerful blows to the back of the criminal, which sent him into a wall. He lost consciousness and about half of his teeth before falling to the floor. Red came up to check if he was still breathing, since he had a nasty nosebleed and a bruised face, but it seemed like he would recover.

"That was kinda unsatisfying." stated the trainer.

He looked around for a while, and after finding one of the tentacles which were holding onto the ship, specifically the one closest to where he was, he returned his Pokemon to their pokeballs to give them a little rest before he started running there. Mere seconds after he disappeared by jumping over a railing, Blue reached the place in which the boy just was, but after seeing that nobody was there, she ignored the signs of the battle that just took place, and continued further through the door next to which was the unconscious Faust.

. . .

"Why did you fly so low?" Green asked while his path crossed with the Phantom's, while both of them were trying to avoid the tentacles.

"I just lent some help to our ally. But I guess he won't be joining us since you said he doesn't have a flying Pokemon." responded the thief.

"Seeing how reckless he's been all day, I wouldn't be surprised if..." the boy had to stop for a short while since the incoming attack separated him from the other person even though both of them managed to avoid it quite easily.

"What were you saying?"

"Red seemed like he fought as if he didn't care what would happen to him." Green changed the sentence to another one that would make more sense and since he felt what he wanted to say at first could influence what was going to happen in some inexplicable way.

"Is he always like that?"

"Hard to tell. I met him twice before but today is the most time we spent together. Although, during our first meeting he was being chased by a bunch of Spearow's, fell in a river and was almost to be pecked to death before I arrived."

Phantom Venin looked as if he started to consider if Red was right in the mind. While using Golbat to blow away one of the tentacles with a Wing Attack, he asked "But what were you going to say?"

"I... Uh... I just wanted to joke that if Red's fight is over, he will probably run up one of those tentacles, kinda like Lt. Surge but I don't think even he would be that cra..." while talking, something caught Green's attention, and he almost lost his grip on the Porygon when he realized that he really should have kept his mouth shut.

It seemed like Red found the knives, which were shaken off by Tentacruel after being left in him by the Gym leader, and was using them in a similar manner, but moving much slower since he had to climb vertically, although seemingly easier since it wasn't one of the tentacles used for fighting. Green was so amazed by this that he didn't notice an approaching attack in time and although he wasn't hit, he opened his hands and started falling down. Porygon tried to catch up to him, but the teenager remained calm and saved himself by calling onto his Ivysaur and using Vine Whip to catch onto a funnel. The two of them descended safely to a roof when suddenly they heard someone make a shocked sound.

"You followed me all the way here to get your money back?" Blue, to whom those words belonged, looked as if she was serious about that question.

Green looked at her in confusion since she took him off guard "Are you an idiot?"

"Are you trying to make me angry?"

Green ignored her when he saw Porygon approaching him "Whatever it is you want, I don't have time. I have to get back up there."

"Back up whe..." the girl's face went white when she saw the massive Pokemon and its many tentacles moving around in the sky "...What is thaaaaat?!"

"Ugh. So loud. How did you manage not to notice it?" he asked while covering his ears, before pointing Porygon to land since he came to the conclusion that it would be easier to sit on it instead of hanging onto it.

"I was super busy trying to find someboooo...! There he issss!" the girl shouted while pushing the boy aside since he was partially blocking her view of Red whom she noticed, already pretty high on the tentacle he was climbing.

"Can you..." Green didn't have time to give his next complain, since Blue suddenly pushed him off the Porygon he was trying to sit on and took the spot for herself "What are you doing?!"

"Fly!" the girl seemed so sure of what she wanted that the Pokemon felt like he couldn't refuse and immediately took off.

"Wait up! How am I..." Green stopped himself since he realized that from the place he was sitting on, he could see up her skirt, so he quickly turned his head "Wait... Was she...?"

Already raising above the funnels, Blue realized that contrary to what she thought previously, she didn't waste her time by stopping to "borrow" a swimsuit from one of the shops on the ship, since she didn't want to worry about her skirt during battles, although she was already considering changing her wardrobe a little since she needed some better clothes for the upcoming, colder months.

Just as Lt. Surge arrived near where Tentacruel's main body was hovering over, he heard a buzzing sound near his belt. He reached for the communicator he borrowed from Michael "This is Lt. Surge, the Gym leader of Vermilion City, speaking. What's going on?"

"Yes. We've heard from one of ours that the people on land sent you here, Sir." said the person on the other end "We've got some news. We've managed to repair the damages, at least for now and we should be able to change our course but something is weighing us down. We can't see what it is but we won't be able to move unless we get rid of it."

The leader looked up at their foe while thinking over a plan he came up with earlier "How fast are we going?"

"Excuse me?"

"I don't care about knots. Just give me a percentage."

"Uh... About 30% of our maximum speed? But why?"

"Go full speed." Surge said while grinning since his prediction could come true.

"But, I... We don't know if the ship can take it... We may lose control again if we do it..."

"Just do as I say, soldier!"

"Aaah! Yes, Sir!" the person on the other end sounded afraid, but right after that, they began using the machinery, judging by the noises that the leader could hear over the communicator.

"It's... It's working! We are beginning to move towards Vermilion City again! I..."

Suddenly, the other person stopped talking and all Surge could hear was white noise. There could be a number for reasons for that, including another jamming device being turned on, or the ship controls malfunctioning due to strain they were putting on them. But the important part was that they were moving towards Vermilion City since that was the only thing needed for Surge's plan, which was to run the ship into land a safe distance from the city. He suspected that the monster would either be knocked out or that after realizing his disadvantage on land, it would give up and go back into the sea.

"Okay. Now it's time to get back into the action." he said before blowing as hard as he could into a whistle he took out from his pocket.

Thanks to that, Magneton, who was until then assisting Phantom Venin, swooped down and without stopping for a second, allowed its trainer and Raichu to grab onto it. Soon, they were back in the sky again, just in time to meet up with Blue who arrived on Porygon.

"Blue? So this is where you went?"

"You know her?" the Phantom asked while making a barrel roll to avoid a tentacle "And why is she riding my Porygon?"

"I don't have time for you. Where did he disappear to?"

"Who are you talking about?" the thief tried to stay calm, although her attitude was getting a little on his nerves.

"I'm talking about Red. I saw him climbing one of the tentacles but now I can't tell which one it was."

"Speaking about tentacles..." Lt. Surge looked around "...did they stop?"

The other ones also realized that fact, so to gain an understanding of why that happened, all of them directed their eyes towards Tentacruel's main body. The giant Pokemon was blinking nervously and trying to look at something in different ways, similar to how a human would do if he wasn't sure that something was on their nose. Blue focused her eyes before giving out a gasp of surprise. The reason she couldn't see Red was that he was standing in the shadow cast by the upper part of Tentacruel's body, atop the highest point of its front horn, barely visible to them and to the enemy.

"Is he really that crazy? Green said that Red has no flying Pokemon. If he falls, he's done." commented the Phantom who looked as worried as if he himself was in the boy's situation.

"Porygon, we must go forwa..."

"Wait!" Lt. Surge shouted to stop the girl from interfering "I thinks he has a plan."

"What do you mean?" the thief wondered.

"If he's that close, Tentacurel can't hit him without risking injuring one of its eyes."

After hearing that, everybody decided to give Red a chance to do what he wanted. During they short talk, he released Eevee and Charmander from their pokeballs and was already giving them instructions.

"Alright! Let's go!"

At Red's command, Charmander began using Smokescreen in much larger quantity than usual to make sure that it would get in Tentacruel's way. To get rid of the clouds of black smoke, the water Pokemon brought two of its tentacles close to its face and started slowly moving them up and down to regain his vision, but Red's team was waiting exactly for that. After deciding that it would be better to focus on only one tentacle, Eevee used a Superstar to hit it since, the monster proably wouldn't even feel a normal Swift. After that, Charmander set himself on fire and at the exact same moment, all of them lept towards the tentacle hit by the dog.

Charmander used Flame Charge, Eevee used Quick Attack while Red just put all of his strength into a punch. Their combined effort managed to push the tentacle off its course and cause it to stab Tentacruel in the eye. The water Pokemon cried out in pain so loudly that the observers had to cover their ears. But during that, Blue noticed that although Red returned his Pokemon back to their balls, he was about to crush into a roof. She kicked Porygon's side to make order him in that direction since he wouldn't be able to hear her, but even though it listened, she knew she was too far away.

"After giving that some thought, this wasn't such a good plan." the boy said to himself while only a couple meters off the ground.

"No shit." Red heard just as he felt something wrap around his leg, causing him to stop only around 40 centimeters from the roof.

Although he was upside down, he immediately recognized Green and his Ivysaur who saved him from certain death.

"You can let him down." Green ordered his Pokemon who retracted his vine, promptly causing Red to drop on the roof, after which the boy helped his rival get up "At least it seems like your plan worked."

He pointed towards their opponent who was trying to move its body around as much as it was possible, which wasn't a lot, all because its right eye was hurt so badly that it was using the left one in order to find the one responsible for its injury.

"Any more bright ideas?" Green asked with a slight smile, since after such a stunt, he was sure that whatever his friend would come up with next would be even crazier.

Suddenly, Red's Eevee went outside of his pokeball on his own, much to surprise of both boys. The Pokemon looked as if he was in a trance when he approached Green. The teenager kneeled down to see what was going on. The dog sniffed around and barked at the pocket of the boy's pants.

"Do you have something there?" Red asked while also getting down to better see what the whole thing was about.

"Just this." Green said while showing the Crystal Eye he got from Phantom Venin.

"Can I?" Red asked while reaching toward his rival who handed him the gem "Didn't the announcer at the auction say something about how the owner of the Crystal Eye can see the future?"

"Wha-? You think that's actually true? But it didn't do anything for me and, from what I saw, it also didn't help Phantom Venin. So why would it start working now?"

"Let me try this." Red said as he held the gem next to Eevee's head.

The dog's eyes and the gem itself started flashing in a variety of colors. The boys looked at it with amazed faces.

"See? The Eye didn't work because it needed a Pokemon."

"Even if Eevee can see the future, how is that going to help us?" Green was still skeptical.

Without saying a word, Red put his head on the other side of the gem as if in that way, some of Eevee's knowledge was supposed to be passed onto him. After some time, the light stopped and Eevee also returned to his normal self. The Crystal Eye started changing until it turned into a normal rock.

"What the hell just happened?" Green grabbed his head since thinking about a logical explanation for what just happened was too hard on him.

"What are you guys doing?" said the voice of Lt. Surge.

The boys looked at him and the others who just landed next to them since they were curious what was taking them so long on that roof. Blue, torn by happiness and embarrassment caused by seeing Red, hid behind the Phantom, hoping that her friend would be too focused on beating the giant Tentacruel to notice her, but she immediately caught his attention. He approached her quickly while pushing Phantom Venin out of the way. He hugged her tightly. At first she didn't know how to respond but when he pulled away and she saw his smile, she couldn't help but also smile herself.

"Your face. You're bleeding. And your clothes. You look terrible." she said while barely managing to keep in tears.

"Well, you look as good as always. But we don't have the time for that right now. I need you for my plan." he said while making a more serious face.

"Of course." she said after gathering herself since she remembered the situation they were in "I'll do whatever you need."

"Your Squirtle... No, it should be a Wartortle by now... It knows Rain Dance, right?"

"Yes. I thought it would be useful to teach it to him. And it evolved during my Gym battle today."

"Watch out!"

Before anyone could tell what was going, a sudden flash of flight blinded them just as they heard a loud sound of something being hit. When their vision returned, they saw Gallop who arrived to use Flame Wheel to knock away a tentacle that was about to hit them. The group looked to the side and saw Jon and the recovered Fille climbing onto the roof.

"Thanks for the save." said Green.

"No problem." answered Jon who went right to patting his steed for a job well done.

"Now, everyone needed for my plan is here," announced Red "Phantom Venin!"

"Yes?!" the thief stood at attention, although a little curious as to what his part was.

"You're the distraction!"

"Wait, what?"

"Go!"

"Alright ,alright. You don't have to shout at me!" the Phantom responed before taking to air using Golbat's power.

"The rest of you, hear me out."

The group gathered around Red to listen to his idea.

. . .

"Is it just me or is this guy speeding up?" Phantom Venin talked to calm himself down as he tried to get Tentacruel to focus solely on him "What are the others doing anyway?"

As if to answer his question, Blue's Zubat approached him and, by making various squeaky noises, communicated with the thief's Golbat that it was time to get fall back and leave the stage to others. The Phantom called Porygon and Gastly, who have been helping him out, into their pokeballs before landing on a different move to which the rest of the group seemed to have moved to, to which he deduced that it was probably to have a better position to execute their plan since the place they gathered in was straight across from the opponent.

"Are you ready?!" Red yelled while looking at all of them.

He was answered by a resounding cheer from all beside the Phantom who was still in the dark as to what their plan was.

"The first step belongs to us." Lt. Surge said while looking at Blue.

The girl nodded and after that, both of them put their hands forward as if trying to reach the tentacles that began approaching them en masse after Tentacruel followed the Phantom's flight. The leader's Magneton flew towards the oncoming attacks with the girl's Bellsprout hanging from it upside down. When the tentacles tried to reach them, Magneton sent out Magnet Bomb's, one for each of the limbs that were in the way. When they stuck to their targets, Magneton used its magnetic abilities to cause them to be pushed away before causing the bombs to detonate, creating a cavalcade of explosions. When the enemy was stunned by that move, he was about to learn the true meaning of that word when Bellsprout released Stun Spore, causing the tentacles to freeze in place and leaving a clear path for the others.

After doing their part, the duo of Pokemon moved out of the way. The monstrous foe was confused by the sensations that came over his body but something even stranger got his attention as he looked at the sky above which began to change. The cause of that were the efforts put forward by Red's Oddish and Blue's Wartortle who were using Sunny Day and Rain Dance respectively. And although it was the middle of the night, a ray of sunlight appeared above them with a rainy cloud right beside it.

It was like the sky split into two parts but only above that ship. Green's Ivysaur, Red's Charmander stood in the sunny part while Surge's Raichu placed himself in the rain. Set up in that way, the Pokemon received the positive effects of the weather. Charmander and Gallop felt their powers grow, which was doubly true for the lizard since after all the battling, his ability also kicked in. Ivysaur almost immediately gathered a much larger amount of energy than he would when normally preparing his bulb.

"Our path is clear! Our victory is certain! It's time to unite in this finishing move!" Red couldn't stop his excitement about the tactic he came up with "Charmander, Ember!"

Although Red didn't have time to notice it since everything happened so quickly, the power up his Pokemon got at that time gave him so much power that his attack changed into Flamethrower.

"Ivysaur, Solar Beam!"

"Gallop, Fire Blast!"

"Raichu, Thunder!"

The four attacks shot out simultaneously and converged in one place but instead of interfering, somehow managed to combine and turn into one, pure white beam which travelled towards at the enemy at an astonishing speed. Red managed to add the name he came up with for this attack at the exact moment it reached its target "Rainbow Cannon!"

The name referred to the rainbow which formed above the ship due to the combination of sunlight and rain. What was unexpected was that the explosion caused by the attack hitting their opponent was also made up of the seven colors.

Before the cloud of dust could set, Lt. Surge put his hand on Red's shoulder to signify that he was proud and thankful that he could be part of the boy's plan "That was something else. But how did you know that it would defeat Tentacruel?"

"I didn't." the teenager responded.

"What? You didn't?"

"Because it didn't. It didn't defeat it, I mean." Red said while pointing towards their opponent who started to be visible again.

The leader took a step back when he saw that the monster, although visibly damaged by their attack, was even angrier than before, even though it was still too paralyzed to do anything to them. It also couldn't keep itself up in the air anymore and fell down but still could hang onto the ship while being in front of it with only half of its head visible.

"Then what the hell was your plan for?!" Surge yelled at the boy.

"Well, I wanted to weaken him so that the iceberg would be enough to finish him off. If we were to fight him longer, we would definitely lose."

"Wait up. Iceberg?"

As if in response to the leader's question, the ship shook even more fiercely than when Tentacruel first grabbed onto it. Jon caught Fille who slipped and was about to fall. The girl blushed a little before jumping right back on her feet. During this, Surge's Magneton returned to its trainer and after letting Bellsprout down, allowed the man to fly up with itself. From air he could see that St. Anne was swimming through a small group of icebergs and luck would have it that thanks to Red' plan, Tentacruel took the brunt of a crush that would otherwise probably sink the ship.

The boat changed course a little and their opponent slowly slipped into the ocean. It seemed to still be conscious but much too weak to bother with chasing after them so instead it went straight underwater probably to never try to face any human again. The leader landed on the roof and immediately dropped to the floor, sweating all over his face, since he couldn't understand how Red was able to predict what would happen and was too afraid to ask. The weirdest part was that the thing with the iceberg was similar to how he wanted to beach the Tentacruel near Vermilion City.

"...Surge... Lt. Surge!" he heard from somewhere but was too overwhelmed to know if it was a real voice or not.

"It seems your comm is going off." pointed out Green.

The man quickly took it out of his pocket and responed "Yes? It's me."

"This is the control room. We have good news. Although us going into full speed caused the controls to get stuck and we thought we would crush into Vermilion, whatever just happened out there damaged the machinery just enough that we returned to the previous speed and will be able to control it enough to safely bring us to the port. How are things on your end, Sir?"

"Just... great." he answered before turning off the communicator and laying his whole body on the roof, allowing himself a big smile.

The others also heard the news. Jon was so happy that he accidentally lifted Fille with both his arms. For a second, she wondered about how her feelings changed throughout the whole experience and realized that that her heart skipped a bit several times and it wasn't because she was charmed by Red or Jon but because she never had so much experience involving Pokemon. Although, she still felt like Jon could make for a good boyfriend and that she should try to talk with her father about it since he seemed to get along with Jon's parent.

Meanwhile, Red, who followed the Phantom who was trying to sneak off, spoke up "Running away?"

The thief felt a shiver run down his spine as he carefully turned around to look at the teenager "Are we really going to do this? You look like you're about to pass out and I'm pretty tired myself. Besides I've given you guys back the gem, so if this is like a matter of honor thing I'm..."

He stopped when he saw that Red was reaching towards him with a handshake. He looked at the boy's hand and then back up to his face in confusion.

"If you ever try to steal anything when I'm around, I promise that I will stop you."

Phantom Venin smiled and grabbed Red's hand "You're on. If I ever lose to you, I'll stop calling myself the third best thief in the world."

"I've been wondering about that. Why are you "the third"? Who is the second?"

"Oh. That's my master. He taught me everything I know."

"And the first?"

The Phantom seemed to suddenly have a nostalgic look in his eyes "Well... That's someone even more amazing."

After that, the thief gathered himself and, using Golbat's wings, disappeared into the night sky.

Red turned around and saw Green waiting for him. Realizing that he must have seen the whole thing, judging by his rival's slight smile, Red also got a big grin on his face. Yet after reuniting with the rest of the group, he realized that Blue disappeared somewhere. He tried asking Lt. Surge about it but the leader knew only that the girl was going to go rest somewhere.

Red knew that wasn't the truth. Although when they talked they seemed to get along as much as they did when they travelled together, the girl seemed worried about meeting him again, especially since they didn't get any time to talk the whole thing over. Red just hoped that they would be able to see each other soon and discuss the whole thing. But at that moment he just wanted to rest so he sat down and together with his Pokemon and friends, looked at the starry sky as they slowly moved towards the port.

"Soooo... Is anybody else curious why there was an iceberg in the sea?" Green asked, but the rest seemed to ignore him since they were too tired out.

. . .

About two days after the exhausting ship adventure, Phantom Venin met up with his associates who freed the famous collector after receiving a message that their leader's mission was done. They set up a temporary base at which they waited for the Phantom. One of them was an old man who looked like a typical butler and was even serving tea and cookies as the thief walked into the room.

"How's it going everybody?" he asked while munching on one of the cookies.

"Don't give us that!" a young, female voice came from a dark corner of the room "You said that you failed to get the Crystal something or other, and after we went to all this trouble!"

"But I gained something even better."

"And what is that?" she sounded rather skeptical.

"A rival." he responed cheerfully.

"What?! But I'm your rival! How is that even..."

"Yeah, yeah." the Phantom just waved his hand to tell her to stop since he knew how heated up she could get "Sebastian, give me the map."

The old man reached into a cabinet and took out a piece of paper which Phantom Venin unrolled in front of him. It showed a large part of the world with an amazing number of regions, including far off lands that people in Kanto probably never heard about.

"We'll return to this place next year." he said while reaching into his bag and taking out a small, silver coin "Now, let's decide where our next heist is gonna be."

He flipped the coin into air where it spun for a second before landing on the map. He picked it up and looked at the name of the place.

"So... Fiore it is."

---

That was something else. I'll try to be brief since you already had to read through all that(well, you didn't have to but you know what I mean).

I have a bad habit of adding to the story anything I come up at the moment of writing. In the original plan for the chapter the only characters that were supposed to appear were Red, Green, Phantom Venin and Darkness Gang. All the other ones were added since I felt it wouldn't be interesting enough if I just had like a story where it went like: Red and Green are hired - Auction begins, the Phantom appears - Darkness Gang appears - Red and Green get help from the Phantom - End. But even If I like all the stuff with Jon, Fille and my set up for the next time Red and Blue meet, there were still parts where after I wrote them I was like "Why did I write about furniture for like 5 minutes?" Or that part which seems like I'm giving a lecture about resonable drinking(I don't drink much anymore but when I did I almost always got wasted so it's not like I'm anyone to talk, haha) But I guess that's just how I am.

I hope anyone who follows this story can understand why it took me so long by seeing the length of this chapter. I really can't write more than around a 1000 words a day and not get tired by it and I also had to deal with getting my bachelor's degree and some other stuff. I really ramped up the speed in the last 2 weeks.

But back to the story. Some quick interesting facts. At first, I wanted to name Superstar "Ride on Shooting Star" like The Pillows song but I forgot about it when it came to that part and at first I was thinking that it always would be a combination move but later Eevee used it by himself so the original name wouldn't fit. Since the most famous phantom thief, Lupin is from France I decided to give my phantom thief a french name. That is why he's Venin which means venom. I used that to come up with names for other characters. Jon Quille Laiteron means Daffodil Milkweed in french. Fleur in Fleurland stands for flower. Fille means girl in french(I got really lazy with this one). Although you probably already forgot about him, there was a character called Rajul Muhimun whose name means important man in arabic. His kingdom's name, Rimal Hara, stands for Hot Sands. Faust Eisen is german for fist iron. I wanted him to have a cool name and german has some neat sounding words so I tried it out and it worked perfectly.

I tried my best but I'm still worried that there is too much exposition in some places and too much action in other ones. Like, really Faust? Who the hell cares about your stupid war? I might actually write some side story about it in the future if I have a good idea for it. I definitely won't write about Phantom Venin's adventures in Fiore but just like he said, he will return to Kanto in the next year. It will be another special chapter(hopefully shorter than this one) and will happen like 30-40 chapters from now. It will reveal more about the Phantom's past and why he's called the third best thief in the world. Btw. this chapter took place in late august/early september so it was still summer but Red and the others will definitely change clothes in the upcoming chapters and there may even be a Christmas-esque chapter when we reach december.

I don't remember anything else I wanted to talk about. The next chapter will tie up some loose ends from this one before Red will challenge Lt. Surge a chapter later and both of them will probably be rather short(2000-4000 words).

Red. Team: Eevee, Charmander, Pikachu, Oddish, Magikarp.

Badges: 2

Green. Team: Ivysaur, Nidorina, Jigglypuff, Hitmonlee.

Badges: 2

Blue. Team: Bellsprout, Wartortle, Zubat.

Badges: 3

Alex. Team: Ditto, ?, ?, ?.

Angie. Team: ?, ?.

Peter. Team: ?, ?, ?.