Recommended Music: Inazuma Eleven GO Opening 4.


Pokemon Tales: Red Chapter 28: Out of Luck.

"So why a casino?" Red asked Green who stood outside the changing room as he was changing back into his regular clothes.

"I... I got frustrated that I couldn't do anything so now it's less of just doing it but also doing it as quickly as possible. I've thought about asking around in bars but there's nothing open this early. And besides, I've got a feeling like this may be something beyond the knowledge of regular thugs."

Red finally came outside and look at his friend with a perplexed face "You mean that you think it's the work of Team Rocket or something? With what's going on, I don't think that they would focus on something like that."

"Maybe not Team Rocket but there are other gangs. There's also Yakuza."

"You don't believe that Yakuza actually exists, do you?" Red asked as they began walking away from the already empty stage.

"Don't you watch any TV? There's whole documentaries about Yakuza and what they do. Stuff like "Once you get in, you'll never get out"."

"If you can't get out, how would the information needed for creating a documentary be available?"

Green blushed a little since he didn't have a good explanation.

Remembering something that Red said a couple seconds earlier, he turned to him and asked "What was that thing you said about Team Rocket?"

"Huh?"

"You said something about how they wouldn't do stuff like this. What gives you reason to believe that?"

"It's not that I don't think they would steal Pokemon. I just meant that they're probably using their resources to get Cross back."

"Cross? Is that someone's name or...?"

"Oh! That's right. You wouldn't know about it."

"Wait." they heard a familiar voice behind them and when they turned around they saw that it belonged to Erika who changed to more casual clothes and put on a wooly hat.

"Yeah?" Red looked at her face with worry since she looked like she just saw a ghost.

"You're him, aren't you? The one the other Gym leaders have been talking about?"

"I guess that could be. It depends. Did they talk about a powerful Pokemon created by Team Rocket that currently resides in the Cerulean Cave?"

"So it is you." she said before looking at green "And your friend?"

"Well, he did help me fight Team Rocket once in the past although it wasn't something nearly as big as the thing in Cerulean. But he still kicked major butt when we fought Darkness Gang."

"I'm still unclear about what this conversation is supposed to be leading towards." commented Green "What is the connection between you, the Gym leaders and Team Rocket? And what was that about a powerful Pokemon?"

Erika looked meaningfully at Red but he responded with a simple smile, letting her know that it was okay to talk about it with Green around.

"Let's maybe talk about it somewhere else..." Red responded while looking around in order to make sure that there was no possibility that someone besides Erika overheard them.

. . .

After arriving in Erika's Gym, Red laid out the history of his encounters with Team Rocket while Green grew more and more surprised with every word. Even the leader gasped a couple times, since she hasn't heard all the details before. He finished speaking at nearly the same time than Kanna and Sumire arrived with tea for the three of them.

"So we're not sure what their plan is, just the fact that they need to use this Pokemon called Mewtwo and that it's something verrry evil..." Green commented before burning the tip of his tongue on the hot beverage.

"I've been pretty busy with other stuff..." Erika said, meaning her modeling job and her duties as a Gym leader "...but I keep in contact with the rest of Gym leaders and most of them are working on finding out something about Team Rocket. Misty is in charge of keeping Cross safe while Lt. Surge is trying to use his military connections in hopes of gathering some kind of info about them. Brock and Sabrina are also actively cooperating with the police departments of their cities in order to be able to personally question any highly suspicious individuals that are caught by them."

"What about the Elite Four?" Red inquired.

"So far we have two of..." Erika started before being interrupted.

Green almost spat out his drink after hearing them being mentioned "You've got Elite Four involved in this thing? The things you said till now were already pretty insane but you're planning on using literally the four strongest people in the whole Kanto to deal with this? Is this Pokemon really that strong?!"

"From what I've seen. But it's not only that... They weren't able to control Cross but after succeeding in creating him, we don't know how long it would take them to make another one. Even a small group of similarly powerful Pokemon would be enough to take over this region. That's not taking into account however many trainers and other Pokemon Team Rocket has in its ranks. And they're not the only ones. Darkness Gang is still out there and if Team Rocket start something, they and all the other criminal organizations could also try to get involved."

Green squinted his eyes and looked down before lifting his head and trying to say something "Red, maybe..."

"Hmm? What is it?" he asked since his friend stopped mid-sentence.

"No. It's... I was about say something stupid. I should already be used to the fact that you don't care about danger when the good of others is involved." the rival explained and a slight smile appeared on his face "But now that you've told me about this, I want in."

"You want in?"

"I mean... I'm already planning on investigating the disappearing Pokemon and contrary to what you've said, there's still a chance that Team Rocket is responsible for this. We don't know anything about their plan and if there's a chance to learn something while also maybe saving these Pokemon sound pretty nice, doesn't it?"

"It sure does."

They finally were communicating at the same wavelength which was visualized by them bumping each other's fists. Erika didn't look to sure about their optimism.

"You don't know if you'll find anything just by going to the casino. Besides, how do you even plan on getting in there?"

"What do you mean?" Red asked with confusion painted on his face.

The girl let out a long sigh after realizing that the two boys had no idea what they were trying to get themselves into.

"Celadon Palace is not like a regular casino where any bum can just walk into, spend some small amount of money and leave. It's high a high class society place. Wine, high stakes, expensive clothes and other such stuff. You won't be getting inside unless you're already a little rich and properly dressed."

"Heard that?" Red turned towards Green.

"Yeah. This may be tougher than it seemed at first."

"Or not tough at all." Erika said quietly, grabbing their attention again "Look... I'm probably going to regret it but if it's something that can save Pokemon and maybe even help save Kanto in the future, I'm willing to offer you my help."

"What does that entail exactly?" Green wondered.

His question would soon be answered.

. . .

A couple hours later, Red and Green were getting impatient while waiting for Erika in the lobby of her enormous house which she didn't seem to share with any other family members, although they could see a maid or a butler now and again. Some of them were giving Red unpleasant looks, probably because they heard about how he treated the Gym leader when they first met. Despite that, they were so dedicated to making their lady happy that they gave they showed their best efforts while preparing the boys' clothes and also offering them snack during their waiting time. Red ate some of them, telling the person who brought them to compliment the chef, but Green was getting too impatient to care about whether he was hungry or not. If he knew it would take this long, he would probably just wait the additional hour or so and walk around a bunch of bars. There wasn't anything stopping him from staying in Celadon for a couple days, in case that their visit to the casino would prove fruitless, but he was worried that someone would be able to notice him sniffing around if he did his investigation over a longer period of time. Besides that, there was another thing that bothered him although he felt that it was mostly Red's influence that caused him to notice it.

"Why is my suit blue?" he asked, hoping to put his mind to rest in order to be completely focused on what they were going to do.

"What do you mean?" Red looked at him with a confused expression, his words not completely clear since he was stuffing his face with a snack made up of some fish, cheese and a pepper.

"Your name is Red and you got a red suit. My name is Green. Why didn't I get a green one? Is green such an outrageous color or do you think they just couldn't find one?"

"Sorry. It's my fault." they heard Erika's voice from upstairs.

They turned their heads and saw her descending down the stairs, wearing a beautiful green dress with a pink floral pattern and a red ribbon attached to the belt around her waist. Overall, the effect instantly reminded them of a kimono.

"I'm the Grass type Gym leader after all. That white kimono I wore earlier was prepared for advertising the perfume but otherwise I like to represent by wearing these colors. If the two of us wore green, people could think that we were a couple. If Red also wore it, they would probably take your for my bodyguards."

"I guess that makes sense." Green said while scratching the back of his head, hoping to get used to his suit.

"I wonder what color would you have to wear if Blue was here?" Red asked, already munching on another thing.

"Hmm... Probably yellow. When you talk about the primary colors it's either green or yellow..."

"Umm... You know a person called Blue? Did your parents have some pact to name you all in such a way?" Erika asked, actually curious.

"It's..." Red wanted to respond but he didn't take into the account that he was eating and started coughing to avoid choking.

"It's nothing like that but it really feels like everyone asks that." Green finished for his friend.

. . .

The group was on their way to the Celadon Palace but Green felt a little uncomfortable, even though they were being driven there in a limousine with a nice audio system, a TV and more food and drinks inside. He kept glancing at Red who was sitting next to him and was busy with staring down Erika who was opposite of them, trying to enjoy a drink. She hoped that he would stop but since he didn't let up after a couple minutes, she decided to speak up, having realized why he was behaving this way.

"Alright, alright. Stop this already. I get your point. But this wasn't a freebie from my dad."

"It wasn't?" he lighted up.

"Welllll... It was a birthday gift. That doesn't count, right?" she said while trying to make it sound like a joke.

"I'm disappointed in you." Red responded before bursting out in laughter, this whole time having been purposefully trying to make the girl uncomfortable.

"Asshole." while saying that, she took off an olive from her miniature sandwich and threw it at him, also laughing.

After they calmed down a little, the leader took on a serious expression "So... What plan did you come up with?"

"Plan?" Red asked as if it was a word that he never heard of.

"We don't need a plan." Green stated while stretching out by placing his feet on the small table with food, which got him an annoyed look from Erika "Red and I are quite different so the best way for us to go about this is that each will just do their own thing."

"But... What is that "thing" for each of you?" she inquired.

"I didn't ask before but are you with us just to help us get there or will your stay and also try to gather information?"

"The latter."

"Then that's that. Don't focus on what we'll do. Don't try to copy us. Just do your stuff, I'll work my magic and Red..." he looked and at his friend and together with Erika noticed that he was too busy with checking the available songs on a touch screen to focus on what they were talking about "...Well, Red's Red."

"I'm afraid to ask what that means." the girl said with a worried voice.

. . .

They finally arrived in front of the Celadon Palace. They could tell thanks to the chauffeur who communicated with them through an intercom before getting out of his seat in order to walk over and open the door for them. Although Erika didn't like Green's attitude, she appreciated that he let her get out first, not because she was a woman, but because he recognized that she was their way to get in. Even if they were dressed fancy and arrived there in an expensive looking vehicle, it was better that they had someone with them that people could instantly recognize as someone from a higher class.

"How long?" the man asked while bowing slightly to the young lady.

She looked at the two behind her to hear their opinion before giving an answer.

"Well, we're not going to spend the whole night there but it's going to have to be at least a couple hours." Green responded while pondering the question in his head "How about 3 hours? Does 3 hours sound good?"

He looked at Red who gave a quick nod. He probably didn't have an opinion of his own and decided to trust Green's judgement.

After all of them left the car, the chauffeur got back inside and drove towards a big parking nearby, created specifically to accommodate the city's night life. Finally being able to see what the famed Celadon Palace looked like, Red's and Green's jaws instantly dropped. They didn't realize that the name was to be taken literally and that the casino actually looked like an ancient castle comprised of multiple buildings. They were worried that it would take them much longer than they expected to gather any information but Erika quickly explained that that only the main building was a casino while the other ones contained a hotel, restaurants and various other facilities for the guests.

Instead of taking the scarily long stairs leading to the main entrance, they opted out for using one of the escalators located on the either side of them. There was a bunch of security guards waiting for them but at least a couple recognized Erika, either from her appearances as a model or through knowing about her father. No one created any problems for the girl and her companions but they still had to go through a door frame metal detector. The material pokeballs were made of didn't raise an alarm but they were still noticed by the guards who didn't look too pleased about it.

"You'll have to leave your Pokemon with us." the nicest looking one of them said while pointing towards the boys' belts.

Red glanced at Erika who didn't bring her Pokemon with her in order to see what she thought about this matter but his attention was caught by Green who took of the belt with the balls without asking any questions.

"Just be careful with them." Red said to the man while handing him his pokeballs.

The security guard responded with a smile that was weirdly off-putting to the boy, before walking over to a shelf a couple meters back and placing the items together with some other pokeballs and various other items that people weren't allowed to bring into the casino.

They walked a couple meters but Red kept looking back, still not able to stop worrying about his Pokemon. The fact that Green remained silent should be reassuring since he was the one with better foresight but him not saying anything was actually quite eerie.

"Are you..." he wanted to ask him a question but stopped when his friends put his finger in front of his mouth, signifying that Red was also to keep quiet, at least until they would be out of the sight of security.

There were still cameras to consider but the rival managed to find a good spot where he could reveal his reason without being seen. He opened his mouth and spat out a pokeball hidden inside. Erika looked at this scene with disgust before coming to her senses and quickly moving towards Green to make him hide the ball somewhere.

"What the hell are you doing?" she whispered while grabbing the two boys by their hair and bringing them closer to herself.

"We're in the enemy territory. It's good that Green is smarter than us and hid an ace up his... mouth."

"A very appropriate comparison seeing as we're in a place where every person is probably very fascinated with the idea of cheating. In fact, we should play some cards and..."

The girl twisted her hands, hurting the boys, in order to make them listen to her.

"This place isn't the den of villainy that you take it for. You two watched too many movies. There are probably some guys from the criminal underworld here but finding them won't be easy. We can't draw attention to ourselves and we have to hurry." she explained.

"Drawing attention to ourselves is actually the best way to do this." Red responded before pulling himself from the girl's grasp which weakened since she thought she convinced them.

After taking a couple steps with Green and Erika watching his back with two completely different feelings, he suddenly turned around and came back. He was sweating a little and avoiding eye contact with either of them.

"What is it?" the girl asked.

"I actually don't have any money with me." he said very quietly while also trying to take a peek to see their reactions.

Instead of focusing on him, Erika turned towards Green and gave him an asking look.

"What? Me? I have a bunch of money with me. I'm prepared to spend as much as a 1000 gold if it's going to help us. I'll have to forget eating at restaurants for some time but..."

"Both of you are equally disappointing." she summarized her opinion of them at that moment.

"Do you want us to beg or will you just lend us some money?" Green asked while looking at her like she was only the means to an end.

"Don't mind him. We'll think about some way to..." Red tried to save the situation but Erika interrupted him by holding out two hands with wads of cash.

"You have to remember why we're here. No matter how foolish or..." she paused and glared at Green "...or how annoying you act, I'm going to give you my support. Just... I'll put my trust in you so don't let me down."

. . .

Green quickly managed to take control of one of the poker tables. He was so used to going through dangerous happenings during Pokemon battles that he developed a face that didn't twitch a single bit as he was bluffing his way to victory. The tokens he got after exchanging the money Erika gave him have already tripled in quantity and it didn't seem like he was going to stop. He had to remind himself that he wasn't there to have fun, although the shocked faces of all the rich people losing to him were a great boost to his ego. He just won another hand when he felt it was a good time to look around and try to see if Red was anywhere nearby since he didn't see him for quite some time. Instead of finding his friend, he saw a large man with a clean-shaved head and a turtleneck hidden beneath his suit approach him slowly.

"Can I help you with something?" he asked the man after spinning around on his chair so that he would be facing him.

Looking down on him, he responded "Mr. Cebotari has been observing you and ordered me to bring you to him. Seeing as he's one of the most influential people here, refusal would be very unwise."

He cracked his knuckles to make it more clear what he mean with his last words before moving to the side so that Green could get a view of the window on a higher floor behind which was a booth probably belonging to this Mr. Cebotari. The boy tried to inconspicuously look at his pocket to make sure that it wasn't clear that he was hiding a pokeball inside it before agreeing to follow the man. As he passed various tables, he tried to see if he would be able to spot Red and he thought he was able to catch a glimpse of him but didn't have the chance to take a good look since they already reached the door behind which were the stairs leading to the booth.

When they arrived before Mr. Cebotari, Green found himself surprised. He had an image of what people in these kind of places looked like and it was mostly in line with what he saw of other guests but this one seemed so out of place that the inside of the booth seemed like a completely different world to him. He looked like a vaguely eastern elder, he wore pink robes, adorned by patterns made of gold, which were clearly a couple sizes too large, revealing his frail body and multiple tattoos of various monsters which didn't resemble any Pokemon the boy knew about. Instead of looking at his guest, the old man was focused on doing something on his phone while drinking a blue-colored milkshake. The one who led Green to this place pretended to cough in order to gain his boss's attention.

"Oh. Where are my manners?" the man said while looking up from his phone and throwing the milkshake on the floor, causing it to spill "They call me Mr. Cebotari but since I would like us to start out on good terms I'll have you known that my name is Tembo. Now... Why don't you come take a seat next to me?"

Green looked at the other man who to his knowledge was Cebotari's security guard, and knowing that if he didn't agree something bad could happen, he took the elder up on his offer.

"So... What brings you here tonight? I can see everything that's happening in this place..." while saying that, he revealed that his phone contained the camera feed from the casino floor which he could freely swap to other ones "I mean... I saw that you're pretty good at poker but I've never seen you here before. Trust me. I would remember such a pretty face. I guess it could be just that it's your first time and you had beginner's luck buuut... You didn't seem that interested in the fact that you were winning. There's probably a dozen possible explanations. Maybe you're so rich that you don't care that you win some pocket change... but then you would probably play at a table with higher stakes. Maybe you were cheating and this whole time you were sweating, thinking that somebody would catch you... Hmm?"

"Or maybe I had a completely different reason." he responded while moving his hand away from the old man since he thought he saw him reaching for it.

"Explain yourself. Depending on whether I'm satisfied with your answer or not, there are three possible ways it could go. One of them is painful, another is pleasant, another is... painful for you but pleasant for me."

"I didn't come here to gamble. I came here to do business. The problem is that I'm new in town and since I'm young there's a small chance that anyone would take me seriously."

"I'm intrigued. Go on."

The boy was focused on playing his cards correctly since Tembo looked like someone who could smell out a lie, which meant that he had to phrase the sentence in a way that would omit the parts he didn't want the man to know about "Have you ever been to Sevii Islands? Most people don't know it but since it's far from the mainland it's a lot easier to illegal things without being noticed by the law. There is some police there but there's not enough for the whole archipelago. My family uses that to have a secret Pokemon fighting competition every Saturday night. If you help me out, I may even extend an invite to you if you're interested in such things. Anyway, the goal of my visit to Celadon City is that I heard that it's a good market for buying Pokemon. I don't really care about where they come from as long as I can confirm that they are strong enough to survive a battle long enough for people to get excited and put a lot of money into betting on which one will win. So unless you have an idea where I might acquire some new additions to our underground fighting ring, then there's no point in me staying here a second longer."

The security guard glared at Green after hearing his last words but the boy didn't want to bother with giving him any attention.

"So you're here to buy Pokemon, hmm?" Tembo said while looking at ceiling and stroking his chin "You know the saying "the truth shall make you free"? Even if you were a secret agent hoping to put me in a prison, I wouldn't care as long as you would be honest about who you are. In my line of business knowledge is the most important thing. But not just any knowledge. I don't want fake tales. There's no way to turn them into money. The truth is what I desire. I was giving you a way out but you decided to lie to me. I gave you a vague idea of what would happen if I wasn't satisfied with your answer but for the sake of living up to my own ideal of truthfulness, let me elaborate. My muscular friend will f# you up."

"Yeeeah... How about no?" Green responded while revealing the hidden pokeball.

Suddenly the window of the booth shattered as a chair came flying through, scaring Mr. Cebotari so much that he passed out. Green took only a second to see if he wasn't cut anywhere before deciding that whatever happened gave him a better option than trying to attack the guard with his Pokemon, especially since the man immediately ran over to try to wake up his boss.

"I wonder what happened?" the teenager thought to himself as he made his way down the stairs.

. . .

A while earlier, in the main room of the casino, Red was putting in his own efforts in order to find some clues about the missing Pokemon.

"You really haven't heard about those missing Pokemon? I mean, it seems like such a big thing and police can't do anything. That's cra..."

"I don't care! Just roll the stupid dice!" one of the people he was playing against clearly didn't care about what the boy had to say.

The other ones weren't as vocal but the boy could see from their faces that no one would take him seriously until he would prove himself to them in some way. He took the two dice laying on the table in front of him and shook them lightly but still gave himself a second for them to stop moving in his palm before throwing them down. One of the many ways he prepared for his Pokemon battles was learning to throw the pokeballs in such a way that he could make his Pokemon appear anywhere he desired, even learning how to curve it in such a way that they could show up in places that were not in his sight. This helped him greatly in throwing the dice. They rolled onto the table and right as it looked like he was about to roll a low number, the dice collided causing them both to stop with the six-dotted sides facing upward. The other players tried to contain their surprise but a few gasps could be heard anyway.

When he repeated the feat a couple times, taking a large sum of money away from them, no one tried to hide their shock anymore. Instead, some of them tried to make friends with him and pretend that they liked him from the star, probably in order to get on his good side and take back some money or even learn the method he used to get his results.

"What is going on here?"

Everyone turned their attention toward a middle-aged women in an outrageously revealing dress with a cream-colored, puffy scarf around her neck and a smoking a cigarette in a holder.

"Madam Shepel. It's good to see you. This guy is really amazing. He keeps getting boxcars. We had him swap dice a couple times to see if he didn't cheat in some way but it seems like he's really some kind of genius. Counting cards is against the rules but if he's using math to estimate his throw it's probably legal, right?" said one of the other players.

"You fool. If he's unable to see the dice, how could he know about how to throw them. He could always throw them in a certain way, making them land in a specific way but he wouldn't know which side would come up." the woman explained while looking disappointed by how easily the others were impressed, although she herself looked interested with how the boy was able to do it.

His secret was in being able to see the dice for just a fraction of a second before he released them and tapping them slightly with his finger as they rolled out of his hand in order to slightly adjust their trajectory. Right as he was preparing to make another throw, this Madam Shepel decided to get better acquainted with him, leaning on one of his shoulders with both her hands serving as support to her head. Her sight was fixated on his hands but she kept breathing into the teenager's ear, wanting to see if he would be still able to do his roll while under pressure.

He tried to ignore her, not wanting to cause a scene that would make him unable to gain any potential information from these people but he still couldn't stop himself from glancing at her. He wasn't into older women so the feeling of her breasts touching his back made him rather uncomfortable. When he looked at her, there was something that seemed wrong but he couldn't immediately tell what it was. It took him only a second or two but the realization of what was off immediately caused a multitude of thoughts to pop up in his head.

"Is... Is this scarf..." he muttered while trying not to jump to conclusions.

"Oh, this? You have a good eye. It was made from the tail of a Ninetales belonging to a special breed. They shine more beautifully than the regular run-of-the-mill tails do. It was very expensive but definitely worth it. You should see it in the daylight." she explained.

The boy already foresaw what this would lead to but he decided to ask further questions in order not to feel bad about what was going to happen "So you cut off a Ninetales' tail?"

"I don't do it, you silly. I pay someone else to do it." she responded while gently tapping the end of his nose with her index finger.

"And what happens to the Pokemon after its tail is cut off?"

"I don't know. They probably cut off all the tails at the same time since it would bleed out. Or maybe they are already dead when they do that? Their pelts are also pretty popular to..." she stopped since she felt that the boy slipped away from under her and she was about to trip and fall onto the table.

She stopped herself but suddenly realized that it was not enough. Red grabbed the back of her head and put in all of his force in order to slam her face into the desk. The woman passed out, leaving a cracked table, a bunch of teeth and a smear of blood.

"Oh no." the boy said after his anger subsided a little and realized that although he didn't regret doing that to the woman per se but doing it in a casino full of people that know her and security guards probably wasn't a good idea.

The people at the same table as him thankfully seemed too shocked to immediately do anything about what just happened and the noise in this place was enough to not have anyone else notice. That gave him a chance to start running away. Unfortunately, he only managed to make it a couple meters while maneuvering between the tables when one person called over two security guards. They couldn't know what has happened so quickly so they probably wouldn't immediately go all out. The boy decided to bet on that and jumped onto a table in order to launch himself and deliver a rising kick to the chin of one of them. When he landed, the other one was momentarily surprised by his co-worker being taken out so easily which allowed the boy to punch him in the gut.

It turned out that the man's belly was protected by hard muscles. He felt a little pain but was instantly ready to repay the favor by grabbing Red and throwing him in the air. The boy's fall was cushioned by a waiter who had the misfortune of being his landing spot. Red checked if the person was fine before getting up and seeing that more of the security guards were moving in his direction. When one was particularly close, the teenager grabbed onto a nearby empty chair and spun around in order to throw it as hard as possible. He underestimated his strength and his target barely had to dodge as the chair flew over his head and crashed through a window of one of the booths'. More and more of the guards were closing in as he made his way by jumping from table to table. One of them finally managed to grab onto his ankle, almost making him fall in the process, when suddenly a foot appeared out of nowhere to deliver a kick to the man's face.

"I really can't leave you by yourself, can I?" Green commented while approaching him together with his Hitmonlee who was the one responsible for saving Red "Although I also got into a bit of trouble."

"Well, what now? I don't think there's a chance we'll learn anything with things like this."

"You're right. I don't see Erika anywhere but let's hope that no one will remember that she was with us and make our way towards the main door."

They advanced as quickly as possible, having Hitmonlee kick away anyone who wanted to obstruct their way. It seemed almost too easy. They soon realized that it was because of the fact that most of the security grouped up near the exit, ready to take them on. The boys stopped in their tracks not too far away from a wall made up of muscular men when out of nowhere, the belts holding their pokeballs flew over the heads of the guards and into the boys' hands. One of the men turned around in order to see who did that but Erika was already out of the casino, calling her chauffer to arrive as soon as possible and hoping that her new friends would find a way to get out of trouble. There was also a chance that she would need to swallow her pride and ask her father for help since someone could go through the camera footage and see that she assisted the boys which could very well spell future problems for her.

Inside of the building, Red and Green attached their belts before considering their options while the guards kept their distance after seeing Hitmonlee extend his leg in order to kick someone who was hoping to attack them from the back.

"Got a plan?" Green asked while also trying to come up with something.

"Yeah. I mean, it's not good but... Go, Charmeleon and Pidgeotto!"

"Watch out! They're going to do something!" the one who looked like he was commanding the rest of the group yelled to the others.

"I will need your jacket though." Red turned to his friend.

"Wait. What?"

Instead of answering his question, the trainer immediately followed up with an order for his Pokemon "Charmeleon, use Smokescreen!"

The Fire Pokemon released a dark cloud from his mouth which proved all the more effective in the dimly lit casino. When it disappeared after more than half a minute, the guards had already surrounded the table the boys stood on but it turned out that they were long gone.

"Hey! I found their jackets! They must be trying to blend with the crowd!" one of them yelled, causing most of the group to start searching in that direction, unaware that Red used Pidgeotto to quickly drop off their clothes in that place in order to throw their pursuers off.

Meanwhile, the boys put their Pokemon back in the balls and have found their way to some kind of place that didn't look like it was for guests. There were various boxes and containers, probably holding things like alcohol, additional chips, cards and dice. There was a lot less cameras there so it would be easier to avoid being seen by them. They looked around, hoping to find a different way to get out of the building. They carefully checked a bunch of rooms, at least as carefully as time would allow them since they were sure that the security would finally realize their ruse and start to check other areas.

Right as they opened one of the doors, out of nowhere they heard a voice "Hey! What the hell are you doing here?! This place is off-limits to casino guests!"

They looked at the man calling them and judged by his scrawny build and casual clothes that he couldn't possibly be part of the group following them. What's more, he didn't seem to know what was going on in the main part of the Celadon Palace. The two parties looked at each other for a while, confused about who the other one could be but as this went on for several seconds all of them got a weird feeling that they knew each other from somewhere. The man seemed to realize the reason for that earlier than them because his face quickly shifted from confusion to anger.

"Why? Why the hell do I always run into you?! Is your goal to watch me suffer as your interruptions cause my position in Team Rocket get worse and worse with each failure?!"

"Team Rocket..." Red repeated as he tried to use this clue to decipher the man's identity "Oh! You're Roger, aren't you?! Maaan, long time no see. I haven't seen you since that time in Vermilion City,"

"He doesn't even remember that I was there during the battle for M2. This asshole... I'll make him pay!" these were the thoughts he had as he looked down, trying to remain calm, slowly searching the back of his belt for the pokeball containing his strongest Pokemon.

He finally found it and looked back toward the two teenagers but instead saw the sole of Hitmonlee's foot right before being knocked out by it.

"I... Did you have to do that so quickly?" Red looked at Green with a disappointed expression "That was our chance to find out if this whole disappearing Pokemon case is related to Team Rocket."

Green quickly flicked his friend's forehead and once again returned Hitmonlee to his ball before explaining the reason for his actions "We already got something better. Consider this for a moment; this jackass acted like if he belonged in this place while being angry at us being here. What would a Team Rocket member be doing here unless this place is somehow related to them?"

"But from what I saw of him, he isn't anyone important. And he didn't dress too fancy. So he probably wasn't here to do business. Maybe he wanted to steal some wine?"

"I think there's more to this than meets the eye. Let's keep looking." Green responded before going into the room they were about to enter right as Roger interrupted them.

"It's empty." Red commented since in fact there didn't seem to be anything besides a single light hanging from the ceiling.

"What do we have here?" Green asked, not really targeting the question at his rival.

He found a piece of wall that looked slightly off-color and pushed it, causing a to go in and slide to the side, revealing what looked like a device one needed to slide an electronic card through in order to do some yet unknow thing. He went outside and searched Roger's pockets, managing to quickly find what he was looking for.

"What do you think is going to happen?" asked Red.

"I don't know. But better stand back in case there's some kind of way for it to recognize that we're not that guy." Green said before using the card.

For a while it seemed like nothing would happen but suddenly the floor opened and from within rose what looked like an elevator. The doors opened and Green peeked inside to see if it was safe before motioning to his friend to follow him. It seemed like it could fit about 15 people. Judging by the buttons, it seemed to them like there was only one other floor it stopped at. They wondered how deep underground it would take them but there was no other way to find out than to wait. Green pressed the button and they started descending. They felt like the elevator was moving fairly quickly so even though Green decided to use his watch to count the time it would take them to get down in order to estimate how deep they went, he couldn't get a clear answer. It took them a little more than half a minute so they couldn't be too deep.

"Do you seen anyone?" Red asked his friend who went outside first once they arrived at their destination.

"No. But take look at this."

The elevator led them to another room, this one made completely out of metal. It had electronic doors leading somewhere but it didn't look like they required the use of the card since the fact that someone managed to get there meant that the person already used it to get in the elevator. They went through them and found themselves in a corridor with no visible end since the walls curved as they went on. On the other side, next to the doors, was a small sign reading "Celadon Palace elevator".

"Why did you have to invite Roger? That moron is just going to embarrass us. Remember what he did at that party last month?" they heard a voice coming from the left, and it sounded like whoever it belonged to was getting closer.

"He's not so bad once you get to know him a little better. Just a tad bit clumsy. I try to consider everyone's situation before criticizing them."

"Maybe you're right... But did you hear that he refuses to bathe more than once a week since he thinks that's a waste of water? You can't tell me that's not disgusting?"

The two people walking towards the elevator were so occupied by their conversation that they didn't immediately notice the boys waiting for them. One of them caught something in the corner of his eye and his first thought was that it was probably Roger, waiting for them, so he immediately shut up and began to look worried about the fact that he might have heard them.

"Hey, man. How's it going? We definitely weren't just..." he stopped himself after seeing that it was someone else "Uuh... You aren't Roger."

"Maybe they're new recruits. I didn't hear about any but I don't even remember like half the people in this place." said the other one.

"Yeah. We actually got lost on our way to the... place where we hold the stolen Pokemon." Green immediately tried to get some information out of them but it didn't work like his plan worked.

"Stolen Pokemon? What the hell are you talking about?" asked one of them.

"Yeah. We have that breeding room since a couple years ago. I think that Mr. Alex took a bunch of his guys to get some Pokemon at Mt. Moon a while back but that's not really stealing, right?"

The pair looked at them suspiciously so Green decided to exchange glances with his friend in order to let him know that his lie didn't work out and it was time for action.

"Go, Gloom!"

"What's going on?!"

"Use Sleep Powder!"

His quick thinking allowed Red to take care of the Team Rocket members without causing any ruckus. He put his Pokemon back in his ball and together with Green decided that they should move swiftly and stealthily in order not to get noticed by anyone else and to figure out what this place was before the people they just met would wake up and raise the alarm.

"Do you have some kind of plan? Or are we just going to search blindly?" Red inquired as they ran through the long corridor without any other doors in sight.

"They said that they don't steal Pokemon. Why would they lie about that if they thought that we're also part of Team Rocket? Maybe they didn't know about it because they're low ranking members but it's also entirely possible that we're barking up the wrong tree. But it still looks like we're in some kind of base. We can't be sure if it's their main one or not but there's a chance that we can find something that will allow us to throw a wrench in their plans."

"That doesn't really explain my question."

"Don't you want to do something?"

"Of course I do! When it comes to kicking Team Rocket's ass then I'm the guy who should get first dibs because of all those times I already did it! But even I can see that it's going to be hard if we're suddenly surrounded by a bunch of them!"

"Then keep quiet and look around. Maybe there's a map somewhere. With how long we've been running without seeing anything, I get a feeling that this place is rather big."

Not too long after they finished arguing they reached the end of the corridor and a pair of doors. They wanted to carefully sneak inside but as soon as they got there they found themselves in an enormous room with multiple doors and a bunch of Team Rocket members, some in uniforms, some not, talking to each other in groups of various sizes. At first they hoped that acting like they belonged would help them blend in but someone spotted them right away and although they lost their jackets in the casino, both of them were dressed suspiciously enough to attract attention.

"Hey! Who are you?!" a red-headed girl in Team Rocket clothes shouted from the other side of the room.

She was so loud that she caused everyone to turned their heads and check out who she was yelling at. Green was ready to reach for one his pokeballs but Red decided to step forward so that this time he could try his hand at fooling the criminals.

"We're the people chosen by Giovanni to be the new admins after the previous one failed in trying to retrieve M2!" he announced, hoping that his knowledge of these specific things would be enough to convince them.

"Prove it!" the girl responded while starting to approach them "If that's actually true, I'm prepared to receive a punishment for my insubordination. But if you're lying... then this won't end well for you."

Her suspicions started spreading to the others and a bunch of people moved around in order to block all possible escape paths. The girl and many others each took out a pokeball and threw them into air, summoning a small army of Zubats, Ekanses, Grimers, Voltorbs and Magnemites. With such a big force, trying to fight with only one or two Pokemon would be an impossible task. On the other hand, being able to split your attention and control a bunch of Pokemon at the same time would be even harder, but Red and Green saw no other choice than doing that.

"Go, everyone!" they shouted simultaneously.

Gyarados made the biggest impression simply by being so large that his head was reaching the rather high ceiling.

"I see that most of your Pokemon evolved. I also never saw you using this Pidgeotto before." Green commented.

"That's because I caught her fairly recently. But I see that you also have some new additions. A Vulpix and a Horsea. Wait..."

Red stopped an stared in awe after realizing that although Jigglypuff and Nidorina still didn't reach their next forms, Ivysaur already evolved into a Venusaur.

"Oh man. That's so cool. I should have expected that it would reach its final form sooner than Charmeleon since you had him even before I got Charmander."

"What's more impressive is that Magikarp managed to evolve into a Gyarados. That kinda makes me regret that I gave up on him and handed him to you."

"What are you all waiting for?! Attack them!" the redheaded girl shouted to the other criminals since for a while they were too intimidated by the impressive assembly of Pokemon "Zubats, formation A-4!"

Although her Zubat moved into position, the rest remained in place until the moment when they received individual orders from their trainers. Seeing that, Green came to the conclusion that although Team Rocket were probably good at executing group tactics, without someone that everyone would listen to, it was harder for them to act in unison. The fact that they were using specific formations also made it easier since that meant their movements would be easier to predict and any disruption to their plans would force each Team Rocket member to think for himself which they probably weren't used to.

"Red, I notic..."

"Wreak havoc, everyone!" the other boy shouted while extending his hand towards the direction of the biggest group of opponents.

Pidgeotto was the fastest, flying by a row of Zubats who without getting an order couldn't help but fall prey to her Aerial Ace. Raichu and Eevee followed, using Quick Attack to swiftly deal with multiple of the non-flying opponents. Gyarados didn't need to use any particular moves since him crashing his big body into groups of enemies was effective enough. Gloom and Charmeleon also contributed in their respective ways. Seeing that, Green smiled since he understood that he was overthinking their situation as he tended to do.

"Let's follow Red's lead!" he announced to his team who happily obliged.

What they didn't notice was that one of the criminals used the door he was next to in order to escape. They continued their assault, their Pokemon barely receiving any damage.

"It looks like there's only a couple left." Red commented.

"Watch out!" Green shouted as he pulled his friend away from a foe who left without any Pokemon wanted to try and take things into his own hands.

What he got instead was an uppercut from the teenager who had to immediately massage his fist after making the man pass out.

Red wanted to thank him but something caught his attention "Hmm? What is that weird smell?"

"What smell? I don't..." Green stopped himself when he saw that a bunch of people and Pokemon were suddenly falling to the ground as if they were puppets whose strings have been cut "There's something wrong. We have to..."

He couldn't finish since he also passed out. Red tried to stop his friend from hitting the floor but he felt too drowsy to do anything and both of them fell down. Gyarados was the last living being remaining awake. Worried about crushing his friends, he placed himself on the floor before falling asleep. After everyone was already down, the thug who left a while earlier came back, accompanied by some gray-haired scientist in a lab coat and a Muk, with both of the humans wearing gas masks.

"It's a good thing that you informed me about this. I was working on being able to turn my test subject's gas invisible and my researched proved to be an astounding success. Also a nice use of the ventilation system if I can say so myself. If they really were as strong as you said, it's far better to handle things this way instead of wasting time and efforts."

"But what are we going to do with them now?" the underling inquired.

"There's no protocol for this kind of thing so the easiest course of action would be to report this to the highest ranked officer currently in the base. Doctor Humane just left so that would be..."

"Admin Alex?"

"Yes. I already feel sorry for these two. Although whatever he does them will probably be better than if Peter got his hands on them so in a way they're kinda lucky."

"I don't know. I worked directly under Alex on one mission and I have to say that I think they're completely out of luck."


I'm back with the speed of a mountain goat in a vat of pudding. Finally we're at the end of this mini Celadon arc. It came out a lot longer than expected. I wonder it managed to surpass the Vermilion City story going by word count, and ignoring the Special Chapter. Even though this was the longest regular chapter yet, there's still a lot of things I wished I could fit in here, like explaining more of who Cebotari and Shepel were exactly before kicking them out of the story(Their names don't have any important meaning. I just have a job where I deal with a lot of foreigners so I jot down any neat sounding names in case I ever want to use them in my fanfic. Some of them will be a little changed to suit my tastes and I don't really care if something is a first or a last name and will use it however I want). In my original plan the fight with Team Rocket at the end was actually supposed to take up like half the chapter and I planned to name it "The Dirty Dozen" or something along those lines. Instead I went with this title that refers that initially makes you think of losing at the casino but later on proves to be referring to the fact that Red finally lost again Team Rocket(Not that I know anyone who has been waiting for this). Red so far has been pretty much unbeatable. The two times he met someone stronger than him, Faust and Cross, their battles were inconclusive. Even this one wasn't technically a fair win but rest assured that there will yet come a time when he'll be humbled.

On the other hand we have Green who's hanging around Red made him start to doubt his intelligence and rely more on instincts, although he's probably not too happy about this. Also, I decided not to follow up on the stuff from three chapters ago since it felt like I would be forcing it into this already packed story. That doesn't mean that he forgot about. Whenever you watch a tv show or an anime or whatever, the characters seem to get too easily hung up on various stuff and there may be people who are actually like that in real life but I rarely met any so I don't feel like writing characters like that is realistic. Normal people know when to put the stuff they worry about in the back of their head in order to focus on the matter at hand and there doesn't have to be anything said about it. We're just kinda chill like that.

Since I said the last time tha we'll be going into a new arc, then if you care about this fanfic to any degree, you're probably wondering what will happen in the future. A thing I can reveal is something that most definitely won't happen although it was in my original plans. There was supposed to be a time skip. Saying how long it would be is a spoiler but just know that there was a good reason why I decided against it. At first I just wanted to have an empty period of time and later on realized that some things wouldn't make sense or would seem like asspulls so I thought I could do like a flashback arc to show what happened but finally I settled on placing it in its proper place in the story. Because of that there are a couple elements that I had to move to an earlier point in the timeline so that they could intertwine nicely. The biggest reveal I can give you is that just like Green, Blue will finally return to the story.

I'm also working on another side story. It's about a certain character that already appeared but that you don't know too much about yet. I'm writing it on my phone when I'm in a car or on a bus and don't feel like playing Pokemon GO or browsing Reddit, so it doesn't get in the way of me writing the main story. It's also written in first person so we'll see how that works out. Also, since it's not important to the plot, I'll just release it when/if it's finished.

Red. Team: Eevee, Charmeleon, Raichu, Gloom, Gyarados, Pidgeotto.

Badges: 4 (He probably got it off-screen when they visited the Gym)

Green. Team: Venusaur, Nidorina, Jigglypuff, Hitmonlee, Vulpix, Horsea.

Badges: 3

Blue. Team: Bellsprout(Bell), Wartortle(Tori), Zubat(?), Graveler(?).

Badges: 3

Alex. Team: Ditto, ?, ?, ?.

Angie. Team: Dragonair, Sandslash.

Peter. Team: Dodrio, Haunter, ?.