Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 5: Riffraff Roof.

"Get back here!" Red's yell could be heard by all the people on the sidewalk as he run past them in a hurry, accidentally bumping into some.

He didn't have time to apologize since he and Eevee were hot on a trail of a notorious thief, who just so happened to be a yellow electric rodent. They stopped at an intersection as the boy seemed to have lost the one they were following from his sight. Eevee barked while pointing his head across the street. Red noticed the escaping Pokemon running into an alley. He almost crossed the street without looking, but Eevee bit one of his pant legs to stop him from running into an oncoming car.

After that, they both quickly moved to where they last saw the thief. To their surprise, he wasn't in the alley, and since it lead to a dead-end, there wasn't really nowhere for him to go. Nowhere but up.

Red noticed a fire escape, so he ran up a wall for half a second before jumping off and grabbing on to the ladder, making it fall to the ground. He wanted to help Eevee up, but the Pokemon realized what tactic was used by their target, so he used a nearby dumpster like a springboard and landed on the lowest level of the stairs. Soon, he and Red were on the rooftop. The thief seemed to think that he managed to lose them so he was sitting there, trying to figure out what the thing he stole was exactly. Realizing that he was about to bite his Pokedex, Red yelled in shock "Don't do that!"

The rodent turned around, startled by the fact that his victims managed to reach him. Not knowing what to do, he left the Pokedex on the ground and started running away again. Red picked up the device but then turned his head in the direction of the yellow Pokemon.

"I got my Pokedex, but I still want to catch that Pikachu. He's smart and fast. Let's go, buddy!" he spoke to his Eevee.

The mouse Pokemon used his speed to jump from one roof to another. The boy and the dog followed suit, although the former was unsure of his jumping abilities and felt kind of unstable after landing. Pikachu didn't want to give up, and continued to traverse the city at the height of around 30 meters. Finally, he saw a big gap leading to an isolated building on the edge of the city so he used Quick Attack to jump over there, sure that he wouldn't be able to do it otherwise.

Red, getting closer to the end of the building he was on, was starting to become afraid of the jump. He used his quick wits and called out Charmander. While holding him in his hands, he gave him an order "Ember!"

The continuous onslaught of fiery balls propelled them through air, still barely allowing them to make it to the other side. Red threw Charmander onto the roof, while he used his hands to grab onto the parapet.

Eevee used the same method as Pikachu to get across and then both of Red's Pokemon tried to help him get up by pulling on his hands, but he assured them that he could do it himself.

When they were finally all there, the teenager was out of breath, but at least he knew he had time to catch it back as there wasn't anywhere the thieving Pokemon could escape to anymore. The Pikachu grabbed on to the ledge of the building and looked down as if trying to gauge if he could survive a fall. After realizing that there was nothing else he could do, he gathered up his courage, turned around and got on all fours while trying to make an angry face at Red, which was kind of hard because the boy, as most people probably would, found the Pokemon to be extremely cute. The case was different for Charmander. He didn't care about what kind of opponent he would face as long as he got a chance to fight.

"Ember!" Red ordered.

The fire Pokemon released his attack, but missed the target as Pikachu dodged it and proceeded to run towards the foe by using Quick Attack. The impact was so hard that the lizard had to dig his claws into the roof of the building to stop himself from falling off. He left about a meter of scratch marks before he stopped the momentum.

Suddenly, Pikachu ran up to Charmander before he could counterattack, but instead of hitting him with an attack, he smiled from cheek to cheek and an aura of comfort showered the fire Pokemon. Then, Pikachu quickly returned to his previous expression as he jumped in the air and spun around to deliver a blow with his tail, which for a second seemed to turn into a hard metal. The attack sent Charmander's head into the roof, leaving a small indentation in the building. When he got up, he was so angry that it seemed like he was about to go out of control.

"Wait!" Red's yell stopped him in his tracks.

The trainer frantically looked over the data provided by the Pokedex, realizing that Pikachu used a combination of moves called Play Nice and Iron Tail.

"You can't allow him to do that thing again. It lowers your strength."

Charmander listened to Red patiently, but at the same time he was looking at the mouse Pokemon who stood a couple meters away, grinning confidently. He was trying to provoke a reaction by pulling down an eyelid and sticking out his tongue, but Charmander held back his rage while waiting for a command from his trainer.

"Wait..."

Seeing as his opponent wasn't going to move, Pikachu used another Quick Attack.

"Wait..."

As the Pokemon was getting closer, Charmander was growing eager to go against his trainer's instructions and use Ember again.

"Now, Smokescreen!"

When Pikachu was about to hit Charmander, the lizard let out a thick, dark cloud of smoke from his mouth. Pikachu tried to stop as the darkness was enveloping him, only to get tripped up by Charmander's tail.

When the electric Pokemon got up, he couldn't see anything besides the smoke. His foe managed to get outside of the range of his own move and looked readily at his trainer, who nodded, signifying that Charmander had free reign to deal with Pikachu in whatever way he desired, as his way to victory was already paved. He went back into the fray. He scratched Pikachu on his back and disappeared again into the cloud.

When the mouse turned around to face his foe, another attack came from the opposite direction. Charmander kept repeating this pattern, which caused Pikachu to lose his cool and start to get angry. Finally he snapped and started continuously using Thunder Shock while spinning, being sure that sooner or later he would catch up with his opponent. He didn't realize that Charmander left the cloud again until he heard his growling.

The lizard pointed at the sky while running towards his trainer. Red understood what he meant and prepared both his hands. When the lizard reached him, the trainer used his arms like a catapult and propelled the Pokemon into air. He managed to get a couple meters into the air, right over the center of the cloud which has already started dissipating.

When Pikachu noticed a shadow on himself, he looked up, only to be hit by Charmander's Ember. The attack caused him to stop using Thunder Shock, as he hit the roof in pain. The lizard didn't let up, and started to spin as he plummeted towards his foe, to finally deliver a powerful attack with his tail into Pikachu's back.

After lifting himself off his opponent, Charmander picked him up by his tail and threw him over his shoulder. While the electric Pokemon was flying through the air, he was hit by another Ember. He tried to get up as quickly as he could as to avoid leaving himself an easy prey to another attack, but Charmander reached him faster than he expected, and unleashed a couple Scratches before using another Ember. The lizard was ready to keep fighting until he heard his trainer.

"That's enough."

Red came over to Pikachu, and Charmander, realizing that the battle was over and he was about to hit somebody who was helpless, walked backwards with an ashamed expression. The trainer patted him on the head reassuringly.

"You did a good job. Now, about you..." he turned to the electric Pokemon "...I don't want you to think I'm a heartless guy so take this."

He gave him an Oran Berry. Pikachu had a little trouble eating it, but he managed to regain some of his strength. At least enough to sit up and listen to what the boy had to say to him.

"I heard from the people in this city that this wasn't the first time you stole something. You seem to cause trouble to all the fruit and fish stands. I understand that you're doing this only because you don't have a home and it's hard to get food in another way if you're living in a city, but there are other ways. You have a talent that is being wasted while you use it for these kind of things. If you come with us, you can use your abilities in battle and I promise that you'll never have to be hungry. How about it?"

The mouse looked confused but then it closed its eyes, seemingly musing over Red's offer. Finally it opened them and pointed to the boy's pocket while giving out a couple shouts. The trainer reached in there and pulled out the Pokedex.

"Oh? You want to know how it works? I can show you that too. So how about it?" he said as he held up a pokeball in his other hand.

"Pika!" the Pokemon replied happily, after which he let himself be sucked into the device.

The boy stood up, as Eevee ran over from the other end of the roof. Red triumphally reached to the sky with the hand holding the pokeball, celebrating the addition of a new partner, as the other two joined him by jumping into air and giving out happy sounds.

"We should go to a Pokemon Center to heal you guys up. Also, I wonder what Blue has been up to during this time."

"Vee?"

"Huh?"

The Pokemon looked around.

"Oh yeah. How are we gonna get down from here?"

. . .

As Red walked into the Pokemon Center, he immediately heard Blue's voice calling him "Hey, Red!"

He noticed her sitting on a sofa in the corner of the room, holding a newspaper that she stopped reading to greet him. He put up his hand, showing that he wanted her to wait a while, as he walked towards the counter.

"Good afternoon." the nurse working there greeted him.

"Good afternoon. Please take care of my Pokemon." he said while putting the pokeballs with his three partners on the counter.

Even though Eevee didn't take part in the fight, he was still there during the whole chase so he must have exhausted at least some of his strength. Since healthcare was free and healing Pokemon didn't take a lot of time, Red saw no reason to not take advantage of that.

"Come back after a couple minutes." the nurse instructed him.

What she said was more of a suggestion than an order. After each Pokemon was healed, the pokeball holding it would be put aside and the trainer could return for his partners at any point during the day. In rare cases where somebody wouldn't show up to take back his Pokemon until the next day, the nurse had a responsibility to contact the trainer by phone. If she couldn't reach him for a week, she would have to call for services which take care of abandoned Pokemon by preparing them to either be given to new trainers or to be released into the wild, based on the Pokemon's will.

Red didn't have to worry about any of that, as he would return for his partners after a short while. He walked up to Blue and sat on an armchair which was perpendicular to the sofa she was on.

"How was your day?" she asked cordially.

"It was great. I got into a big chase and managed to catch a new Pokemon."

"What kind?"

"A Pikachu."

"Oh? They are so cute. You'll have to show it to me." the girls eyes lit up as she was saying that.

"What about you? What have you been up to?"

The girl stood up and rubbed her finger under her nose as a show of confidence.

"While you were out there playing around..." she began.

"Are you trying to start shi..."

"...I was busy kicking some serious ass." she continued, ignoring Red's comment.

"What do you mean?"

"Behold!" she shouted while holding a small grey pin right in front of his face.

"What is that? Wait... Is that one the badges?"

"You got that right. I went to the Gym and won it in a fight that will be remembered in history books as my first step to becoming the greatest trainer this world has ever known."

"I think you may be getting a little ahead of yourself."

"I think you are a little jealous." the girl teased him.

Red blushed a little while showing frustration on his face.

"I'm not! As soon as my Pokemon are healed, I'm gonna go there and get my own badge! You can come and see how a real trainer does it!"

"With pleasure. I just want to warn you that your Pokemon may have a little trouble, considering that the leader of this Gym uses rock type Pokemon."

"Rock type, huh? So you had advantage with Bellsprout."

"Also with my other Pokemon."

"Your other Pokemon? I didn't know you had one."

"You''ll get to see it once the need for me to use it again arrives. Bell is already plenty strong, but this one is on a whole other level."

While wondering what Blue's other Pokemon could have been, Red glanced at the newspaper laying on the table, which the girl has been previously reading.

"Anything interesting in the news?"

"Same old, same old. Team Rocket are causing trouble in various places. They are getting rid of the other gangs, while growing stronger themselves. The police is rather helpless. They don't even know what the Rocket's goal is."

"Team Rocket... I almost forgot about them."

"What is it? Did you meet them before?"

"Yeah. And ever since, I wanted to meet a Gym leader, to ask him some things."

"Your Pokemon are healed!" the nurse yelled from the other end of the room.

Since the place was almost empty her voice didn't really disturb anyone. Red got up and started walking toward the counter.

"Time to get my badge and my answers."


Hello. It's me again. As always providing some (possibly) interesting facts about this chapter. The major thing is that I finally decided to split a chapter. Originally, Red catching Pikachu and fighting Brock was supposed to take place in one chapter but the first part of that came out longer than I expected. I'd like to keep these chapter relatively similar in lenght because I think it's better if I release shorter chapters but do it quicker. And it's not realy a matter of quantity over quality because you would get the same thing if I did it the other way, but you would just get more at the same time.

Another thing is, I learned that the word riffraff refers to a group of people, not one person. I probably got subconsciously confused by The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I decided to keep it in the title anyway, because it just sounds funny. I guess it kidna works? The riffraff was supposed to refer to Pikachu being a thief, but since Red understood why Pikachu was doing what he was doing it was like "Hey, I get it, I would probably do the same." So maybe "riffraff" means both Red and Pikachu.

Anyways, the next chapter, as you already know is gonna have the fight with Brock. If you thought this one had a stupid title, wait until you see the next one.